Skip to main content
Soup

Rhubarb Soup, Sweet

A sweet soup made from boiled rhubarb, water, lemon rind, bread, sugar, light wine, and cream or egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rhubarb and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Soup, Sweet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the rhubarb in water with the lemon rind and bread slices until the liquid is flavored.

  2. Strain the mixture and sweeten it to taste.

  3. Add the light wine and cream, or the egg yolks, but do not boil after adding the eggs.

Serve

  1. Serve warm.

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. Rhubarb + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rhubarb + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Rhubarb
Provides the tart flavor and body that the soup is built on.
Eggs
Thicken the soup gently and add richness when stirred in off the heat.
Light wine
Adds acidity and aroma to balance the sweetness.
Bread
Flavors the liquid as it simmers with the rhubarb and lemon rind.

The step that matters

Do not boil after adding the eggs. Egg yolks can curdle and turn grainy when they get too hot. Keeping the soup below a boil after adding them keeps it smooth and creamy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rhubarb, bread, sugar, wine, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, bread, sugar, wine, cream. 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

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes