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Groundnut Soup

A soup made from ground nuts, flour, oysters, water, and red peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nuts and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,180 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Groundnut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Beat the shelled ground nuts until smooth.

  2. Mix in the flour until well combined.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, bring the water to a boil.

  2. Add the oyster mixture and red pepper(s) to the boiling water.

  3. Cook until the oysters are done.

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. Nuts + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + oystertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  5. Nuts + oystertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Shelled ground nuts
Forms the body and richness of the soup as they thicken into the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the mixture, giving the soup a smoother, heavier texture.
Oysters
Provide the main protein and a briny, savoury flavour.
Red peppers
Add heat and colour to the soup.

The step that matters

Cook until the oysters are done. Oysters toughen and turn rubbery when overcooked. Cook them only until they firm and turn opaque, then stop the heat so they stay tender.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, oyster, pepper):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, oyster, 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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