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Soup

Cucumber Soup

A savory soup made with mutton broth, cucumbers, lettuce, peas, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Make broth with mutton, bacon, onion, carrot, turnips, salt, and sweet herbs, then strain it.

Cook the soup

  1. In a pan, brown the crumb of the French roll in butter.

  2. Add cucumbers and lettuce, and let them stew for 15 minutes.

  3. Add 1 quart of the broth and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the green peas and add 2 more quarts of broth as it stews.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the soup, adding moisture and a fresh, mild flavor.
Lettuce
Softens as it stews, adding body and a gentle vegetal flavor.
Green peas
Add a soft, starchy body and a mild sweetness to the soup.
French roll crumb
Thickens the soup slightly and adds a bready body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the crumb for a nutty aroma.
Broth
Forms the liquid base and carries flavor from the meat and vegetables.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, carrot, turnip, butter, cucumber, lettuce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, carrot, turnip, butter, cucumber, lettuce. 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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