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Nut Soup

A soup made from hickory and almond nuts simmered with water, onion, celery, salt, and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nuts and almond work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 394 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Nut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Break the hickory and almond nuts into small pieces.

  2. Simmer the nuts in 2 pints of water with salt, onion, and celery until tender.

  3. Add the milk or cream to the soup.

  4. Strain the soup if desired.

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. Nuts + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + celerytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Almond + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

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

  5. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 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

Hickory nuts
Provide the main nutty flavour and body of the soup.
Almond nuts
Add nutty flavour and thicken the soup as they soften in the simmering water.
Rich milk or cream
Adds fat and creaminess, giving the soup a smoother, richer texture.

The step that matters

Simmer the nuts until tender. Nuts must soften fully in the simmering water before the milk is added; undercooked nuts stay hard and gritty, and the soup will taste raw and have a grainy texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nuts, almond, celery, milk):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nuts, almond, celery, milk. 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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