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The Clear Soup

A clear soup made with stock, eggs, cream, mushrooms, truffles, cockscombs, sugar, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Boil the stock until tender.

  2. Stir the thick soup with a wooden spoon until it begins to boil, then set aside.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the cream.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine strainer back into the pan.

  3. Gradually add the thick soup to the egg and cream mixture, stirring sharply.

  4. Combine the mixed soup with the remaining soup and blend well.

  5. Heat on a hot plate until nearly boiling, then remove when thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cooked vegetables and stir gently to release steam.

  2. Season with sugar and salt, then refrigerate until needed.

  3. Reheat in a bain-marie before serving, avoiding direct heat.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Cream + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the soup into a smooth, delicate body as they set with gentle heat.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel that softens the clear soup's flavour.
Stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries every other flavour in the soup.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and a tender, meaty bite to the finished soup.
Truffles
Add a strong, distinctive aroma and luxurious flavour in small amounts.

The step that matters

Adding the hot soup to the egg and cream mixture. Egg yolks scramble if they meet too much heat too fast. Adding the hot soup gradually while stirring briskly warms the yolks gently, so the mixture thickens smoothly instead of curdling. Keep the heat moderate afterwards.

“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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