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Curry Soup

A soup made with apple, onion, stock, flour, curry powder, coconut, curry paste, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and coconut work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 274 recipes. Both carry phenylethanol, which smells rose, floral. The science ↓

Curry Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the coconut in the stock for as long as possible.

Make the soup

  1. Fry the onion, apple, curry powder, and seasoning in dripping for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Thicken with flour, bring to a boil, and add lemon juice.

  4. Pass through a fine sieve and serve with boiled rice.

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. Apple + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

  2. Onion + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,831 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the soup as it comes to a boil, giving it body.
Onion
Softens and sweetens during frying, forming the savory base of the soup.
Apple
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the curry spices.
Curry powder
Provides the main spice aroma and flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour, bring to a boil, and add lemon juice. Flour must be cooked at a boil to lose its raw taste and reach full thickening power. Lemon juice is added at the end, since prolonged boiling can dull its bright acidity.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, flour, coconut, lemon):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, flour, coconut, lemon. 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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