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Game Soup

A hearty soup made with game, lean ham, beef, onions, celery, and water, served over fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Game Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the game

  1. Joint the game neatly and cut the ham and onions into small pieces.

  2. Fry the game, ham, and onions in butter until lightly browned.

Make the soup

  1. In a soup pot, add the beef cut into strips and a little pepper.

  2. Pour in the water, heat slowly, and stew gently for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the pieces of bird and place them in a bowl.

  4. Cook the soup for an additional hour, then strain it.

  5. Cool the soup, add the celery, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup over fried bread in a tureen.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grouse or partridges
Give the soup its main flavour and rich, gamey character.
Lean beef
Releases savoury flavour and body into the broth during long, gentle stewing.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth when browned in butter first.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savoury depth to the broth as it stews.

The step that matters

Heat the water slowly and stew gently. Starting the meat in cold water and heating slowly lets proteins and flavour release gradually into the liquid. Boiling hard tightens meat fibres and produces a cloudy, less flavourful broth.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, ham, onion, beef, bread, butter, 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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