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Puree De Marrons— Chestnut Soup

Chestnut soup made with white stock, chestnuts, cream, seasonings, and served with fried bread croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Puree De Marrons— Chestnut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Split the chestnuts at both ends and boil them for 10 minutes.

  2. Skin the chestnuts and add them to the stock with seasoning.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the chestnuts are soft.

Finish the soup

  1. Rub the soup through a fine sieve.

  2. Add the cream and stir until it boils.

  3. Serve with fried croutons of 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. Chestnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Chestnut + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Chestnut + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Break down when simmered to give the soup its body and starchy, mellow flavour.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the chestnuts are soft. Chestnuts must be fully tender before sieving, because undercooked pieces will not rub through smoothly and leave a grainy texture.

Swap the chestnut

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

  1. Chestnutthe original
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, 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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