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Spring Fruit Soup

A rhubarb soup with ham, onions, carrot, consommé, and bread crumbs, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spring Fruit Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Peel and wash the rhubarb, then blanch it in water for 3-4 minutes.

  2. Drain the rhubarb on a sieve and place it in a stewpan with sliced onions, carrot, ham, and butter.

  3. Stew gently over low heat until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Add the consommé and bread crumbs, then boil for about 15 minutes.

  2. Skim off any fat, season with salt and Cayenne pepper, and pass through a fine sieve.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Forms the main body of the soup and, once stewed, gives it its tart flavour and smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the stewed vegetables a rich mouthfeel.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the soup as they boil, giving it body.
Consommé
Serves as the liquid base, carrying the flavour of the soup.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften slowly in the pan.

The step that matters

Stew gently over low heat until tender. Low, gentle heat softens the rhubarb and aromatics without scorching the butter or sugars, so they break down evenly. Rapid boiling at this stage can catch on the base of the pan and leave a burnt taste.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, ham, butter, bread, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, ham, butter, bread, pepper. 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.

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