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Teas Soup

A liver soup simmered with onion, pepper, salt, thickened with flour and butter, finished with ketchup and served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Teas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Cut the liver into two or three pieces.

  2. Place the liver in a stew pan with a little water and heat.

  3. Skim off any foam when it boils.

Simmer

  1. Add the sliced onion, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cover and simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the stew with kneaded flour and butter.

  2. Stir in the ketchup and serve with toasted bread.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Liver
Provides the main body and rich, meaty flavor of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stew as it cooks, giving it a fuller body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the flour thicken smoothly and adding flavor.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth as it softens in the broth.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich liver.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam when it boils. Foam rising from the liver contains impurities that can cloud the broth and taste bitter. Removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavored.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, flour, butter, ketchup, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, flour, butter, ketchup, bread. 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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