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Soup-puree of Chestnuts

A creamy chestnut puree soup flavored with broth, Madeira wine, and butter, garnished with asparagus tops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chestnut and asparagus share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Soup-puree of Chestnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Roast the chestnuts until cooked, then place them in boiling water to peel off the inner skin.

  2. Put the peeled chestnuts in a saucepan and cover them with broth.

  3. Cover the pan and cook slowly until the chestnuts are tender, then rub them through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Return the chestnut puree to the saucepan and add the thickened broth.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until it boils.

  3. Add the Madeira wine and season to taste, then let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Skim the soup well, then strain it through a fine sieve and keep warm.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir in a piece of butter and garnish with asparagus tops.

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. Chestnut + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Chicken + asparagustop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Chestnut + chickentop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together295 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Butter + asparagustop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Provide the starchy, floury body that thickens the soup into a smooth puree.
Thickened chicken or veal broth
Supplies the liquid base and savory flavor for the soup.
Madeira wine
Adds a sweet, aromatic depth that rounds out the savory broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Rubbing the chestnuts through a fine sieve. Chestnuts must be fully tender before sieving, or the puree stays grainy and lumpy. Pressing them through a fine sieve removes fibrous bits and gives the soup its smooth texture.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, madeira wine, butter, asparagus):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peasfits better
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, madeira wine, butter, asparagus. 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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