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Venison Soup

A hearty venison soup made with ham, onion, celery, corn, tomato juice, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper 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 ↓

Venison Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the venison and place it in a pot with the onion, celery, and water.

  2. Stew slowly for 3.5 hours.

  3. Strain the soup, pressing hard to extract the liquid.

  4. Cool the soup, skim off the fat, and return it to the pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the chopped corn and simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then add a lump of butter rolled in flour and the tomato juice.

  3. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Venison
Provides the main meaty flavor and body as it slowly stews into the broth.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the broth during the long stew.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and flavor to the stock as it cooks.
Celery
Adds savory, vegetal aroma that builds the background flavor of the broth.
Butter and flour
Rolled together, they thicken the soup and add richness to the broth.
Corn
Adds sweetness and soft texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour lump. Flour dropped in as a lump can clump and stay grainy instead of thickening evenly. Rolling it in flour first and simmering long enough lets the starch hydrate and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, meat, ham, celery, corn, pepper, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, meat, ham, celery, corn, pepper, butter. 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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