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72 Pepper Pot

A thickened soup made with bouillon, spinach, onion, carrot, lobster or crab, suet dumplings, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

72 Pepper Pot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Combine bouillon, spinach, onion fried in butter, parsley, and pounded carrot in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lobster, crab, or salt fish, ocre powder, and suet dumplings.

  2. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

  3. Thicken the soup with a mixture of flour and butter.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, and serve hot.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Spinach + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together870 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Bouillon
Forms the liquid base that carries all the other ingredients.
Spinach
Adds body and a leafy, vegetal flavour to the broth.
Lobster, crab, or salt fish
Provides the main seafood flavour and protein in the soup.
Suet dumplings
Add richness and a soft, filling texture as they cook in the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with butter, giving it body.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body as it breaks down into the broth.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with a mixture of flour and butter. Flour needs to be cooked in fat and whisked into hot liquid to avoid lumps and a raw, starchy taste. Adding it to a simmering soup and stirring well lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the broth smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, butter, parsley, carrot, lobster, flour, pepper):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, butter, parsley, carrot, lobster, flour, 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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