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Cocoa-nut Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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 oz for each quart of soup.

Make the soup

  1. Simmer the cocoa-nut in 5 pints of beef broth for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove the cocoa-nut.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix 5 oz of rice flour with 1 pint of cream and add the strained broth.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon of ground mace, ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  5. Cook for an additional 10 minutes.

  6. Alternatively, mix 5 oz of rice flour with 5 pints of beef broth, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 oz of finely pounded sugar, and 2 glasses of 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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Rice flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, body-rich soup as it cooks.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Grated fresh cocoa-nut
Lends its flavour and some body to the broth during simmering.
Beef broth
Forms the savoury base that the other ingredients are cooked in.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cocoa, rice, flour, pepper, cream, sauce. 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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