Name: Garlic Soup
Ingredients: 1 clove garlic, grated; 2 cups sweet milk; 2 tablespoons blanched raw peanuts, finely ground; Flaked corn (or any flaked cereals or pulses); Pinch of coarse sea salt; Dash of cayenne pepper or curry

Why it works: Garlic and peanut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 877 recipes. Both carry 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, nutty. The science ↓

Garlic Soup

Ingredients

1 clove garlic, grated
2 cups sweet milk
2 tablespoons blanched raw peanuts, finely ground
Flaked corn (or any flaked cereals or pulses)
Pinch of coarse sea salt
Dash of cayenne pepper or curry

Directions

Make the soup

Grate the garlic into the sweet milk.
Add the ground peanuts and let it stand for at least 30 minutes.
Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Serve

Pour the strained milk over flaked corn in a colander two or three times.
Transfer the flakes to a plate and pour the soup over them to make them fluffy.

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.

Garlic + peanuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together877 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Peanut + corntop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together346 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,090 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,368 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet milk: Forms the liquid base of the soup and softens the flakes when poured over them.
Blanched raw peanuts: Add body and a nutty richness to the soup once ground and steeped in the milk.
Garlic: Adds sharp aroma and pungency that infuses into the milk while it stands.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, milk, peanut, corn, pepper):

Corianderfits better
Cuminfits better
Basilfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, milk, peanut, corn, pepper. 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.