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Grouse Soup a LA Montagnarde

A hearty soup made from grouse, sherry, vegetables, and stock, finished with a grouse meat puree.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Grouse Soup a LA Montagnarde

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grouse

  1. Remove the meat from the bones of the grouse, discarding the lower backs.

  2. Set aside 4 fillets.

  3. Cut the fillets into small pieces.

Make the stock

  1. In a stewpan, combine the carcasses, sherry, carrot, onion, celery, cloves, shallots, and mace.

  2. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the stock.

  4. Boil for 1.5 hours.

  5. Strain the mixture into a bowl.

Make the puree

  1. Pound the remaining grouse meat with a little boiled rice.

  2. Moisten the mixture with grouse essence.

  3. Pass the mixture through a tammy to create a puree.

  4. Warm the puree before serving.

  5. Ensure the puree does not curdle.

Serve

  1. Pour the puree into a soup tureen with the reserved grouse fillet pieces.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Grouse
Provides the main meat flavour and, when pounded, the body of the puree.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the simmered stock.
Boiled rice
Pounded with the meat, its starch thickens the puree and gives it body.
Stock
Forms the liquid base, adding savoury depth and body to the soup.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it simmers into the stock.

The step that matters

Warming the puree without curdling. The puree is thickened by starch and proteins from the pounded meat and rice. Heating it too fast or letting it boil can cause these to coagulate and separate, so gentle warming keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, carrot, onion, celery, clove, shallot, rice):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, carrot, onion, celery, clove, shallot, rice. 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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