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Squirrel Soup

A hearty soup made from quartered squirrels, onions, turnip, carrot, ham, parsley, mace, water, butter, ketchup, lemon juice, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Squirrel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin, clean, and quarter the squirrels.

  2. Fry the sliced onion in the dripping until golden, then remove it.

  3. Fry the squirrels in the same fat until browned.

Make the broth

  1. Place the squirrels and onion in a soup pot with turnip, carrot, ham, parsley, and mace.

  2. Add 3 quarts of water, cover, and boil gently for 3 hours.

  3. Remove the squirrels and set aside for another dish.

  4. Rub the vegetables through a colander, then cool and skim the broth.

Finish and serve

  1. Season the broth, then heat it again.

  2. Add the butter mixed with flour, ketchup, lemon juice, and claret.

  3. Boil briefly and pour into 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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 flavours the broth during long simmering.
Butter mixed with flour
Thickens the soup slightly and adds richness when stirred in.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour to the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the broth.
Onion
Browning in the fat builds savoury depth in the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the broth after cooling. Fat rises and sets on cooled broth, so skimming removes the greasy layer and leaves a cleaner, lighter soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, turnip, carrot, ham, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, turnip, carrot, ham, parsley, butter, flour. 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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