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Game Soup

A hearty soup made with game, ham, beef, onions, celery, and 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 celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Game Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Joint the game.

  2. Cut the ham and onions into small pieces.

  3. Fry the ham and onions in butter until light brown.

Make the soup

  1. Add the beef, cut into strips, to a soup pot, with a little pepper.

  2. Pour in the water.

  3. Heat slowly.

  4. Stew gently for 2 hours.

  5. Remove the pieces of bird and place them in a bowl.

  6. Cook the soup for an additional hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain and cool.

  2. Add the celery to the soup.

  3. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Serve the soup over fried bread in a tureen.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grouse or partridges
Simmering releases their gamey flavour and body into the broth.
Lean beef
Slow stewing softens its connective tissue, giving the soup body and a rich meaty flavour.
Lean ham
Frying it adds browned, savoury flavour that seasons the soup.
Onions
Frying softens and sweetens them, building an aromatic base for the soup.
White celery
Added near the end, it contributes a fresh, mild aroma and some texture.

The step that matters

Fry the ham and onions until light brown. Browning in butter creates savoury flavour through Maillard reactions, which seasons the whole soup. Taking them too dark turns the flavour bitter and can carry over into the broth.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, ham, onion, beef, bread, butter, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, ham, onion, beef, bread, butter, 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.

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