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Chestnut Soup

A soup made from boiled chestnuts, onion, milk, water, butter, and cornflour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chestnut Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chestnut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Boil the chestnuts, peel them, and mash.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the mashed chestnuts, grated onion, milk, water, and butter.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Mix the cornflour with a little water to make a paste, then add it to the soup.

  4. Boil again and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Chestnut + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together696 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Chestnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Form the body of the soup, giving it a thick, starchy, mealy texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup's texture and flavour.
Cornflour
Thickens the soup as it heats, because its starch swells in liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and a mild, sweet-savoury background flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the cornflour paste. Cornflour must be mixed into a smooth paste with cold water first, then stirred into the hot soup. Added as dry powder it clumps, and it thickens only when the mixture boils again.

Swap the chestnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, butter, 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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