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Cocoa-nut Soup

A soup made with beef broth, grated cocoa-nut, butter, rice flour, spices, and optional cream, soy sauce, lemon juice, sugar, and sherry.

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 the 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 beef broth for 1 hour.

  2. In a separate pan, melt the butter over low heat until just dissolved.

  3. Add the grated cocoa-nut to the melted butter and brown it to an amber color, stirring constantly to avoid burning.

  4. Strain the soup and mix in the browned cocoa-nut.

  5. In a bowl, combine the rice flour, mace, cayenne, and salt with the cream if using.

  6. Stir the mixture into the soup and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

  7. If using, add soy sauce, lemon juice, sugar, and sherry 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.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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 body of the soup when simmered and browned.
Butter
Carries the browning of the cocoa-nut and adds richness to the soup.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a smooth body.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the cocoa-nut in butter. Stirring constantly keeps the grated cocoa-nut from scorching, since sugars and proteins darken quickly once they start to brown. Burnt pieces give a bitter taste that spoils the whole pot.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, 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 beef, 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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