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Cocoa-nut Soup

Soup of grated cocoa-nut simmered in veal stock, thickened with rice flour and seasoned with mace, cayenne, salt, and optional soy sauce, lemon, sugar, 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.

  2. Grate the cocoa-nut finely.

  3. Weigh the grated cocoa-nut.

  4. Use 2 oz of grated cocoa-nut for each quart of soup.

Make the soup

  1. Simmer the grated cocoa-nut in the veal stock for 1 hour.

  2. Melt the butter over low heat.

  3. Brown the grated cocoa-nut until amber-colored, stirring constantly.

  4. Add the browned cocoa-nut to the simmering stock.

  5. Mix the rice flour with ½ pint of cream (if using).

  6. Stir the mixture into the soup.

  7. Add mace, cayenne, and salt.

  8. Cook for an additional 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. 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. 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
Simmered and browned, it gives the soup its main flavour and body.
Veal stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries all the other flavours.
Rice flour
Its starch thickens the soup as it cooks and is stirred in.
Butter
Fat that carries the browning of the cocoa-nut and adds richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the savoury stock and spices.

The step that matters

Browning the cocoa-nut. Browning relies on sugars and proteins reacting with heat. Past amber it scorches quickly and turns bitter, so constant stirring keeps the colour even and the flavour mellow.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cocoa, veal, 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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