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Stanley Soup

A lamb stock soup thickened with flour, containing green peas, corn, okra, and rice, seasoned with pepper, sea salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 933 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stanley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Make a rich stock from lamb and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.

  2. Add equal quantities of green peas, corn, okra, and a little rice.

  3. Cook until the vegetables are tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the soup with a little flour.

  2. Serve with sauce; do not strain.

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. Corn + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

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

  2. Okra + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together250 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Corn + okratop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together161 recipes

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

  4. Okra + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + okratop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Flour
Starch swells when heated, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, adding body and a softer texture to the soup.
Okra
Its natural mucilage thickens the liquid and gives a slightly silky texture.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture to the soup.
Corn
Adds natural sweetness and a tender bite to the soup.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with flour. Flour should be whisked into a little liquid first to prevent lumps, then the soup must simmer so the starch swells and thickens fully and loses its raw taste.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pepper, butter, corn, okra, rice, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, butter, corn, okra, rice, flour. 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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