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Mussel Soup

A soup of tomatoes, onions, mussels, wine, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mussel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. In a large casserole, boil tomatoes and onions in broth for 1 hour.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and add the meat glaze.

Prepare the mussels

  1. Open the mussels by heating them in a casserole and retain the liquid.

  2. Remove the beards and boil the mussels in white wine with herbs, carrots, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

  3. Combine the mussels and their sauce with the tomato puree.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and fresh flavour of the soup base.
White onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the base.
Meat glaze
Adds concentrated savoury richness and body to the strained soup.
Mussels
Supply the main seafood flavour and tender texture in the finished soup.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that help bring out the mussels' flavour.

The step that matters

Opening the mussels by heating them in a casserole. Heat forces the shells open, but overcooked mussels turn rubbery. Remove them once opened and keep their liquid, which carries much of the sea flavour into the sauce.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, meat, white wine, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, meat, white wine, vinegar, pepper. 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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