Skip to main content
Main

Cracker Soup

A soup made with lean mutton, Boston crackers, milk, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cracker Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Put the meat, onion, and bones in the cold water and cook slowly for two hours.

  2. Strain the soup and cool it, removing all fat.

  3. Return the broth to the heat.

  4. Skim the broth as it heats.

  5. Season the broth.

Soak the crackers

  1. Salt and pepper the crackers in a bowl.

  2. Pour the boiling milk over the crackers and cover tightly.

  3. Set the bowl in boiling water for half an hour.

  4. If the milk is not fully absorbed by the crackers, strain it out.

Combine and serve

  1. Carefully place the crackers in a tureen.

  2. Stir the flour and butter mixture and parsley into the soup.

  3. Boil the mixture for one minute.

  4. Pour the mixture over the crackers.

  5. Cover the tureen and let it sit in hot water for ten minutes before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Boston crackers
Soak up the milk and broth, forming the body and thickness of the soup.
Milk
Softens the crackers and adds creamy richness and mild sweetness to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and giving the soup a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter mixture so it lends body to the soup when stirred in.
Mutton
Gives the broth its meaty flavor and depth as it simmers with the bones.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth as it heats. Fat and fine impurities rise to the surface of a simmering broth. Removing them keeps the soup clean-tasting and prevents a greasy texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, milk, butter, flour, pepper, onion, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, milk, butter, flour, pepper, onion, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesCurried MuttonCurried Mutton9 recipes