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Soup

Modern Cookery

A mild vegetable curry soup made with onions, cucumbers, tomatoes or apples, curry powder, salt, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the onions and cucumbers.

  2. Dice the tomatoes or apples.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes or apples.

  2. Add the curry powder, salt, and water or stock.

  3. Simmer for 20 to 32 minutes until tender.

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 + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  2. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Onions
Form the soup's aromatic base and add sweetness as they soften.
Cucumbers
Add moisture and a light, fresh body to the soup.
Tomatoes or apples
Contribute acidity and body, breaking down as the soup simmers.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced aroma and flavor that defines the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato. 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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