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Farina Soup

A simple soup made with raisins, farina, lemon, and cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Farina Soup

Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Farina Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Bring water to a boil in a pot.

  2. Add the raisins or mixed currants and raisins, lemon spice, and salt.

  3. Slowly stir in the farina while constantly stirring.

  4. Cook for 10 minutes, then remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the beaten egg.

  2. Sweeten to taste and add the lemon juice and cider.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Raisin + cidertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together588 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Farina
Thickens the liquid into a soft, porridge-like soup as it cooks.
Egg
Adds richness and slightly thickens the soup when stirred in at the end.
Raisins
Add sweetness and soft texture as they plump in the hot liquid.
Cider
Adds fruity acidity and aroma to the soup.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg just before serving. Adding a hot egg to a simmering mixture can scramble it into lumps. Stirring it in off the heat, just before serving, lets it blend in smoothly and enrich the soup without curdling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, egg, sugar, cider):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, egg, sugar, cider. 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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