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Apple Soup

A soup made from tart apples simmered in stock with spices and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Apple Soup

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Heat the stock until hot.

  2. Slice the apples into the stock without coring or peeling.

  3. Add all the seasonings and boil gently until the apples are a pulp.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Return the mixture to the pan, adding the flour mixed with cold water and the butter.

  2. Boil again for 10 minutes.

  3. Add more stock if a thinner consistency is desired.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  5. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 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

Tart apples
Break down into a pulp that gives the soup its body and tart flavour.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that cooks the apples and carries the seasonings.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and sets when boiled in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and boiling again. Mixing the flour with cold water first keeps it from forming lumps. The soup must then boil so the starch swells and thickens fully and the raw flour taste cooks out.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, ginger, butter, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, ginger, butter, flour. 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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