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Peanut Soup

A soup made from roasted peanuts, brandy, water, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peanut and pepper work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 668 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Peanut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Shell the roasted peanuts and remove the dry brown skin.

  2. Pound the peanuts to a smooth paste in a mortar, adding brandy gradually to prevent oiling.

  3. Transfer the paste to a saucepan over heat.

Make the soup

  1. Stir in the boiling water gradually.

  2. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  3. Let it simmer gently until thickened, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Peanut + peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Brandy + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together934 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Peanut + brandytop 38% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Roasted peanuts
Provide the main body, flavor and thickening starch of the soup.
Boiling water
Loosens the peanut paste into a pourable soup while it heats.
Brandy
Helps the peanut paste blend smoothly and keeps its oils from separating.

The step that matters

Adding brandy while pounding the paste. Peanuts are rich in oil, and pounding them dry can release it and make the paste greasy and separated. Adding brandy gradually helps the paste stay smooth and emulsified.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, 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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