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Almond Soup

A thickened almond soup with boiled egg yolks, stock, butter, flour, cream, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Almond Soup

Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Blanch and finely pound the almonds and egg yolks together.

  2. Add the mixture to the hot stock and bring to a boil while stirring constantly.

  3. Thicken the soup with bits of butter rolled in flour.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add salt to taste and the rich cream.

  2. Place the cut egg whites in a tureen.

  3. Pour the hot soup over them.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + coffeetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main flavor and body of the soup once pounded and blended into the stock.
Egg yolks
Help bind and enrich the soup, adding richness and a smoother texture.
Butter and flour
Form a roux-style thickener that gives the soup body as it heats.
Rich cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavor and smoothing the texture.

The step that matters

Add the mixture to the hot stock while stirring constantly. Stirring keeps the ground almond and yolk mixture dispersed so it does not clump or scorch on the bottom of the pot, giving a smooth soup.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, coffee, cream):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Hazelnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Cocoafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, coffee, cream. 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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