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Soup

Chestnut Soup

A soup made with boiled chestnuts, water, salt, mace, cayenne pepper, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chestnut Soup

Why it works: Chestnut and pepper work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 826 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Chestnut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the chestnuts for 45 minutes to 1 hour until tender.

  2. In a separate pot, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil.

  3. Add the boiled chestnuts to the water.

Season and simmer

  1. Season with salt, mace, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Simmer for 1 to 3 minutes.

Finish

  1. If desired, stir in ½ pint of cream 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.

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. Chestnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  4. Chestnut + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Chestnuts
Starchy base that softens into a tender, floury body as it cooks.
Cream
Adds fat and richness for a smoother, rounder mouthfeel and softer flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the chestnuts until fully tender before adding them to the water. Chestnuts that are still firm stay tough and grainy, because their starch only softens fully with enough time in hot water. Check for tenderness before moving on.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chestnut, pepper, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chestnut, 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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