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Game Soup

A hearty soup made with game, ham, beef, onions, celery, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

  1. Joint the game neatly.

  2. Cut the ham and onions into small pieces.

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

Make the soup

  1. Place the mixture in a soup pot with the beef cut into strips, and add pepper.

  2. Pour in the water.

  3. Heat slowly.

  4. Stew gently for 2 hours.

Finish the soup

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

  2. Cook the soup for an additional hour.

  3. Strain it.

  4. Cool the soup.

  5. Add the celery.

  6. 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

Beef
Long gentle stewing breaks down connective tissue, giving the soup body and a rich meaty flavour.
Game birds (in the method)
Provide the main meat flavour of the soup, which deepens during slow stewing.
Ham
Adds a savoury, salty depth to the broth as it cooks.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and aroma that carry into the broth.
Butter
Browns the game, ham and onions, adding richness and toasted flavour.
Celery
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Fry the game, ham, and onions in butter until lightly browned. Browning triggers the Maillard reaction and caramelises the onion sugars, creating deep savoury flavour that the broth cannot develop later. Pale, under-fried ingredients produce a flat, washed-out soup.

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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