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Squirrel Soup

A soup made from quartered squirrels simmered with vegetables and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lima beans work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 222 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Squirrel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squirrel

  1. Wash and quarter the squirrels.

  2. Place them in a pot with salt and cold water.

Simmer and strain

  1. Cover and simmer gently, do not boil.

  2. Add vegetables like corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and lima beans.

  3. Strain the soup through a coarse colander when the meat is tender.

  4. Return the liquid to the pot and boil longer.

  5. Thicken with butter rubbed in flour.

  6. Chop and add celery and parsley if desired.

Serve

  1. Toast and dice the bread, fry in butter, and place in a tureen.

  2. Pour the hot soup over the bread.

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 + lima beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  5. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Squirrels
Provide the meat that becomes tender during the long, gentle simmer.
Butter rubbed in flour
Thickens the broth into a smoother, richer body as it cooks.
Lima beans
Add starch and body to the broth as they cook through.
Irish potatoes
Release starch into the broth, adding body and thickness.
Bread
Fried in butter, it soaks up broth and adds a crisp, savory contrast when served.

The step that matters

Cover and simmer gently, do not boil. Boiling toughens meat proteins and can cloud the broth, while gentle simmering lets collagen break down slowly so the meat becomes tender.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, potato, tomato, lima beans, butter, flour, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, potato, tomato, lima beans, butter, flour, bread. 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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