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Peanut Soup

A creamy soup made with milk, peanuts, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and peanut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,048 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Peanut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk.

  2. Season the milk with salt, black pepper, and red pepper.

  3. Grind the peanuts finely using a meat chopper.

  4. Add the ground peanuts to the milk and cook for 20-30 minutes.

  5. Just before serving, stir in the heavy cream.

  6. Strain the soup and serve immediately.

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. Milk + peanuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Peanut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Peanuts
Ground peanuts give the soup body and a rich, nutty flavour as they cook into the milk.
Rich milk
Forms the liquid base and carries the peanut flavour through the soup.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the heavy cream just before serving. Cream is added off the heat near the end so it stays fresh-tasting and smooth. Boiling it for long can cause it to separate or taste flat, and fat-rich dairy thickens and dulls as it reduces.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, 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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