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Soup

Garlic Soup

A warm soup made with garlic, peanuts, sweet milk, corn, salt, and cayenne pepper or curry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and peanut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 877 recipes. Both carry 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, nutty. The science ↓

Garlic Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Grate the garlic into the sweet milk.

  2. Add the finely ground peanuts and let it stand for at least 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Pour the strained mixture over the flaked corn.

  2. Season with salt and cayenne pepper or curry.

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. Garlic + peanuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together877 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Peanut + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together346 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Garlic
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma that flavors the milk.
Peanuts
Add body and a nutty richness to the milk as they steep and are strained.
Sweet milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and carries the other flavors.
Flaked corn
Provides the solid base that the flavored milk is poured over.

The step that matters

Letting the peanuts stand. Steeping the finely ground peanuts in milk lets their fats and flavor move into the liquid. Too short a rest gives a weak, grainy taste, so the full 30 minutes matters before straining.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, peanut, milk, corn, pepper):

  1. Corianderfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, peanut, milk, corn, 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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