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Soup

Red Currant Soup

A soup made from mashed currants, dates, and flaked pine or hazel kernels, stirred with water to desired consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and pine work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Red Currant Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mash the currants.

  2. Wash and stone the dates, then process them through a food mill using the 'C' rotor.

  3. Flake the pine or hazel kernels.

Finish the soup

  1. Thoroughly beat the mixture and add water to achieve the desired consistency.

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. Dates + pinetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  2. Currant + datestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Currant + pinetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide tart fruit flavour and most of the soup's body.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and help thicken the purée.
Pine or hazel kernels
Add richness and a nutty flavour from their oil.

The step that matters

Adding water to reach consistency. Purées vary in thickness depending on the fruit and how finely it is processed. Adding water gradually and beating well lets you control the final texture and avoid a soup that is too thick or too thin.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dates, pine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pumpkinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, pine. 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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