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Pumpkin Soup

A soup made with pumpkin, water, rice or vermicelli, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pumpkin Soup

Why it works: Rice and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Wash, peel, and cut the pumpkin into small pieces.

  2. Boil the pumpkin in a pot of water until cooked.

  3. Drain the water and strain the pumpkin.

Make the soup

  1. Return the pumpkin to the pot, add water, rice or vermicelli, and butter.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Cook until the rice or vermicelli is done.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pumpkin + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pumpkin + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,933 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Forms the body of the soup and gives it its sweet, smooth texture when cooked and strained.
Rice or vermicelli
Thickens the soup slightly as it cooks and adds starchy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder mouthfeel to the soup.

The step that matters

Cook until the rice or vermicelli is done. Starch grains need enough time in simmering liquid to swell and soften fully. Stopping early leaves a gritty texture and a thinner, less cohesive soup.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, pepper. 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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