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Spice Soup

A savory soup made from a stock of lean meat, hard‑boiled eggs, onion, spices, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Make a stock the day before by boiling 5 pounds of lean meat in 5 quarts of water for 5 hours.

  2. Skim off the grease when the stock is cold.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the chopped whites and grated yolks of 4 hard-boiled eggs, 1 chopped onion, 1 teaspoon each of cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, juice of 2 lemons, salt, and pepper to the stock.

  2. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

  3. Just before serving, stir in ½ cup of Worcestershire sauce.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean meat
Boiled for five hours to build the body and savory flavor of the stock.
Hard-boiled eggs
Whites and yolks thicken and enrich the soup, adding body and a mellow richness.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the stock.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the spiced broth and balances its richness.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds concentrated savory, tangy depth just before serving.

The step that matters

Skimming the grease from the cold stock. Fat rises and solidifies when the stock is cold, so removing it first keeps the soup clean-tasting and prevents a greasy mouthfeel once the other ingredients are added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, egg, cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg, lemon. 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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