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Soup

Cocoanut Soup

A creamy soup made from grated cocoanut simmered in veal stock and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cocoanut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Simmer the grated cocoanut in veal stock for 1 hour, keeping it covered.

  2. Strain the mixture closely.

  3. Add hot cream, mace, cayenne, and salt to taste.

  4. Mix flour smooth in a little cold milk, then add to the soup.

  5. Let it boil for a moment, then serve.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Grated cocoanut
Simmered in stock to release its coconut flavour into the soup.
Veal stock
Forms the savoury liquid base of the soup.
Hot cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it comes to the boil.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour smooth in cold milk before adding it. Flour dropped directly into hot liquid clumps, because its starch surface gets wet and gels unevenly. Blending it smooth in cold milk first lets the starch disperse evenly so the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, pepper, flour, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, pepper, flour, milk. 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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