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Gourd Soup

A soup made from sliced gourd simmered with butter, salt, brown sugar, pepper, water, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Gourd Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a pan, combine the sliced gourd, butter, salt, brown sugar, pepper, and water.

  2. Set on the fire and stew gently for 20 minutes until reduced to a pulp.

  3. Add the flour, stir, and moisten with the fresh milk.

  4. Boil carefully for 10 minutes longer.

Serve

  1. Serve with slices of toast.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Gourd
Breaks down into a pulp that forms the body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the soup body.
Fresh milk
Adds liquid and richness, creating a creamy soup base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the soup.

The step that matters

Boil carefully for 10 minutes longer. Once the milk and flour are added, the soup can scorch or boil over. Gentle, attentive heat keeps the milk from catching on the bottom of the pan and keeps the thickened texture smooth.

“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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