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Squirrel Soup

A hearty soup made from quartered squirrels, salt, water, vegetables, and thickened with butter and flour, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Squirrel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squirrel

  1. Wash and quarter the squirrels.

  2. Place them in a pot with salt and cold water.

  3. Cover and simmer gently on the stove, avoiding boiling.

Make the soup

  1. Add vegetables like corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and Lima beans.

  2. Strain the soup through a coarse colander when the meat is tender.

  3. Return the strained soup to the pot.

  4. Boil longer.

  5. Thicken the soup with butter rubbed in flour.

  6. Add chopped celery and parsley if desired.

Serve with bread

  1. Toast the bread.

  2. Cut the toasted bread into ½ inch dice.

  3. Sauté the diced bread in butter.

  4. Place the toasted bread in a tureen.

  5. Pour the hot soup over the 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Corn + lima beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Squirrels
Provide the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering and flavours the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Butter
Enriches the thickening and adds richness to the soup and fried bread.
Lima beans
Add starch and body to the soup as they cook.
Irish potatoes
Release starch into the broth, adding body and thickness.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, avoiding boiling. Gentle simmering keeps the meat tender and the broth clear; a rolling boil toughens muscle fibres and can make the liquid cloudy.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, potato, tomato, lima beans, butter, flour, parsley):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Cuminfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, potato, tomato, lima beans, butter, flour, parsley. 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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