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Orange Soup

A soup made from boiled orange pieces, water, butter, flour, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Orange Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Pare the oranges and cut them into pieces.

  2. Boil the orange pieces in water for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Add salt and cayenne to the juice.

  5. Bring the juice to a boil.

  6. Add a pinch of soda.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken with butter and flour mixed together to form a cream.

  2. Remove from heat.

  3. Stir in the hot cream.

  4. Serve with croutons.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Orange + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,821 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Provide the main flavour and the juice that forms the soup base.
Butter
Adds richness and body when combined with flour to thicken the soup.
Flour
Thickens the juice into a smoother, more substantial soup when cooked with butter.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture when stirred into the hot soup.

The step that matters

Thicken with butter and flour mixed together to form a cream. Flour must be fully blended with butter before going into the hot juice, otherwise it clumps and the soup turns lumpy instead of smoothly thickened.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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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