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Soup

Cocoa-nut Boup

A cocoa-nut soup made by simmering grated cocoa-nut in stock and thickening with rice flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Boup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coconut

  1. Remove the dark rind from the cocoa-nut and grate it finely.

  2. Weigh the grated cocoa-nut and use 2 ounces for each quart of soup.

Make the soup

  1. Simmer the cocoa-nut in the stock for 1 hour, then strain it carefully.

  2. Mix the rice flour, mace, cayenne, and salt with the cream and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Alternatively, use gravy-soup or beef broth and add soy sauce, lemon juice, sugar, and sherry.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cocoa + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

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

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Cocoa-nut
Gives the soup its coconut flavour and body once simmered and strained.
Rice flour
Thickens the cream mixture so the soup becomes smooth and body-rich.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the soup.
Veal stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that the coconut flavour is simmered into.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice flour and cream mixture. Rice flour thickens only as its starch swells in heated liquid, so the mixture must be cooked long enough to lose its raw floury taste and reach full thickness. Stirring keeps it from lumping or scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, rice, flour, mace, pepper, cream, sauce):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, flour, mace, pepper, cream, sauce. 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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