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Soup-cream of Chestnuts, Hunter's Style

A chestnut cream soup flavored with game broth, partridge puree, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Soup-cream of Chestnuts, Hunter's Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Prepare the chestnuts as in the previous recipe.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the chestnuts with a piece of butter and enough broth to cook them.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve to create a puree.

Make the soup

  1. In another saucepan, mix the chestnut puree with 1 gallon of thickened game broth.

  2. Stir the mixture until it boils, then season to taste.

  3. Let it boil slowly for 20 minutes, then remove the grease.

  4. Strain the soup into another saucepan through a fine sieve.

Finish with the partridge liaison

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt 6 ounces of butter.

  2. Add 6 ounces of puree of partridge diluted with the yolks of 6 raw eggs and 1 pint of cream.

  3. Slowly pour the chestnut puree into the partridge mixture while stirring, ensuring it does not boil to prevent curdling.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Chestnut + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Chestnut + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Break down into a smooth puree that gives the soup its body and flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup into a smooth, silky texture when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the soup.
Puree of partridge
Adds meaty depth and flavor to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the chestnut puree to the partridge mixture. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and curdle if they get too hot. Pouring slowly while stirring and keeping the mixture below a boil keeps the liaison smooth.

Swap the chestnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits better
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, 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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