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Cocoa-nut Soup

A soup made from veal stock, grated cocoa-nut, butter, rice flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cocoa-nut

  1. Remove the dark rind from a fresh cocoa-nut and grate it finely.

  2. Weigh the grated cocoa-nut and use 2 ounces for each quart of soup.

Make the soup

  1. Simmer the cocoa-nut in the veal stock for 1 hour, then strain.

  2. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter over low heat and brown the grated cocoa-nut until amber, stirring constantly to avoid burning.

  3. Add the browned cocoa-nut to the strained stock.

  4. Mix the rice flour with ½ pint of cream (if using) and add to the soup, stirring well.

  5. Season with mace, cayenne, and coarse sea salt.

  6. If desired, add soy sauce, lemon juice, fine sugar, and sherry.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cocoa + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cocoa + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cocoa-nut
Provides the main flavour and, when browned, a nutty aroma and colour to the soup.
Veal stock or beef broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savoury flavour.
Butter
Fat that browns the grated cocoa-nut, adding richness and toasted flavour.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup so it has a fuller, smoother body.

The step that matters

Browning the grated cocoa-nut. Stirring constantly over low heat keeps the cocoa-nut from scorching. Scorched coconut turns bitter and can spoil the whole soup, while properly amber-browned coconut gives a toasted, nutty flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cocoa, butter, rice, flour, pepper, cream):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cocoa, butter, rice, flour, pepper, 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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