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Semolina Soup

A light soup made with semolina, milk, bone stock, onion, carrot, herbs, peppercorns, and served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Semolina Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. If the stock is without vegetables, boil the onion, carrot, herbs, and peppercorns in it for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the stock and return it to the saucepan.

Make the soup

  1. Sprinkle in the semolina and stir until it boils.

  2. Simmer until the semolina thickens.

  3. Add the milk, salt, and pepper, and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Pour into a warm tureen and serve with fried bread.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Semolina + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Thickens the stock into a soup as its starch swells when heated.
Milk
Adds richness and a softer, creamier body to the soup.
Bone stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the semolina. Semolina must be sprinkled in gradually while stirring, then simmered, so the starch disperses and swells evenly. Dumping it in at once can form lumps that are hard to smooth out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (semolina, milk, pepper, carrot, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against semolina, milk, pepper, carrot, bread. 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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