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Soup

Wine Soup

A simple soup made with water, lemon peel, cardamom, sugar, rye bread, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cardamom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Wine Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine water, lemon peel, cardamom, sugar, and grated rye bread.

  2. Stir and boil until well combined.

  3. Remove from heat and add wine to the mixture.

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. Lemon + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cardamom + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Rye + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Lemon + ryetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Grated rye bread
Thickens the soup and gives it body and a earthy, toasted flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the wine and lemon.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma and a touch of acidity.
Cardamom seeds
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before adding the wine. Wine added to a boiling liquid loses alcohol and delicate aromas quickly, and its flavor can turn flat or harsh. Adding it off the heat keeps its fruitiness and aroma in the finished soup.

Swap the cardamom

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar, rye, bread):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Cardamomthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, rye, 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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