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Chestnut Soup

A creamy soup made from Spanish chestnuts simmered in stock and seasoned with mace, cayenne, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chestnut Soup

Why it works: Mace and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,009 recipes. The science ↓

Chestnut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Remove the outer rind from the chestnuts.

  2. Soak the chestnuts in warm water until it is too hot to touch.

  3. Peel the chestnuts quickly.

  4. Place the peeled chestnuts in cold water.

  5. Weigh out ¾ lb of chestnuts for each quart of soup.

Cook and purée

  1. Cover the chestnuts with stock.

  2. Simmer gently for about 45 minutes, until they break easily with a fork.

  3. Drain the chestnuts.

  4. Mash the chestnuts smoothly or pound them with a strong spoon.

  5. Pass the mash through a fine sieve.

  6. Gradually mix in the appropriate amount of stock until desired consistency is reached.

Season and serve

  1. Season with mace, cayenne, and salt, stirring often until it boils.

  2. If using, stir in the cream before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  2. Chestnut + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Chestnut + macetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish chestnuts
Provide the main body and starchy, sweet flavour of the soup when cooked and puréed.
Stock
Cooks the chestnuts and sets the liquid base and final consistency of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the chestnuts are fully tender. Chestnuts that are undercooked stay firm and grainy, so they will not purée smoothly through the sieve. Cooking until they break easily with a fork gives a silky texture.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, cream):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, cream. 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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