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Soup

Stock Soup

A soup made with stock, chicken, carrots, celery, cauliflower, tomatoes, rhubarb, coffee, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stock Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the stock, chicken, carrots, celery, cauliflower, and sliced tomatoes.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender.

  3. Stir in the rhubarb, coffee, cream, and butter just before serving.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Celery + cauliflowertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

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

  5. Cauliflower + rhubarbtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stock
Liquid base that carries the flavour of the other ingredients through the soup.
Chicken
Adds savoury, meaty flavour and protein to the broth as it simmers.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and soften into the soup during simmering.
Sliced tomatoes
Contribute acidity and body, deepening the savoury flavour of the broth.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat that rounds out flavour and gives a glossy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream and butter just before serving. Cream and butter are rich dairy fats that can separate or turn grainy if they are kept at a hard boil for long. Adding them off the heat, just before serving, keeps the soup smooth and the richness intact.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, celery, cauliflower, tomato, coffee, cream):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, celery, cauliflower, tomato, coffee, cream. 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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