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Sweet Potato Soup

A soup made from boiled sweet potatoes, pine nuts, onion, celery seed, olive oil, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil sweet potatoes until done.

  2. Peel and mash them through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Dissolve pine nuts in hot water.

  2. Add grated onion, salt, and celery seed.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the soup.

Finish

  1. Mix in the sweet potatoes and return to the heat.

  2. Add olive oil and cayenne pepper.

  3. Boil for a few minutes.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Pine + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sweet potato + pinetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sweet potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together950 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Form the main body of the soup and thicken it as they break down.
Pine nuts
Add body and richness to the broth when dissolved in hot water.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and a mild sweetness as it cooks in the soup.
Celery seed
Contributes a warm, earthy aroma that flavors the whole soup.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives a smoother mouthfeel.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, pine, onion, celery, olive, pepper):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, pine, onion, celery, olive, 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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