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Soup

Cold Water Soup

A broth made from veal and beef simmered in cold water, seasoned with salt and pepper, served with crupple and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cold Water Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a tightly covered kettle, simmer the veal and beef for about five hours, replenishing with small amounts of cold water.

  2. Set aside until the next day, then skim off the fat.

  3. Simmer again for three to four hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Cook the celery sticks and leaves for 30 minutes, then add to the soup and strain.

  2. When boiling, add salt, pepper, and crupple; let boil for one minute while stirring, then serve.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal shank
Releases gelatin and flavor into the broth during long, slow simmering.
Beef shanks
Adds collagen and meaty flavor that enrich the broth during long simmering.
Crupple
Flour and raw egg mixture that thickens the soup and adds body when boiled briefly.

The step that matters

Adding the crupple while stirring. Flour-and-egg mixtures can clump or cook unevenly if dropped in without stirring. Stirring while it boils disperses it so it thickens smoothly, and a short boil cooks the raw egg through.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, pepper, flour, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, pepper, flour, egg. 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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