Skip to main content
Main

Nut Soup

A soup made from ground chestnuts and peanuts, thickened with milk or juice and flavored with garlic, nutmeg, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chestnut and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 180 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

Nut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine ground chestnuts and ground peanuts in a bowl.

  2. Pour enough milk or juice over the mixture to cover the nuts and let it stand for at least 1 hour.

  3. Thin the mixture to a soup consistency with sweet milk or buttermilk.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the soup plates with garlic.

  2. Add flaked rice or your choice of cereal to the soup.

  3. Season with a dash of nutmeg and cayenne pepper.

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. Chestnut + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  2. Peanut + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

  3. Peanut + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together877 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground chestnuts
Provide the bulk and starchy body that gives the soup its base texture.
Ground raw peanuts
Add richness and fat, contributing body and a nutty flavour to the soup.
Flaked rice or cereal
Adds thickening starch and body to the soup as it is added.
Milk or fruit or vegetable juice
Soaks and softens the ground nuts, helping them hydrate and blend into the soup.

The step that matters

Letting the nuts stand. Soaking the ground nuts in liquid for at least an hour lets them hydrate and soften, so the mixture blends smoothly and thickens evenly instead of staying gritty.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chestnut, peanut, milk, rice, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chestnut, peanut, milk, rice, nutmeg, 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.

More nut soup recipes

Cocoa 17Palm 3 See all 4 →

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes