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Veal Soup

A clear soup made with veal shin, ham, onions, pepper, salt, cream, flour, egg yolks, and optional tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine water, onions, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and ham slices in a pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours, skimming occasionally.

  3. Add the shin of veal and continue boiling for 2 more hours.

  4. Remove the ham slices and skim off any grease.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a bowl, mix cream with flour and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Strain this mixture.

  3. Gradually add some soup to the mixture, stirring well.

  4. Pour it back into the pot.

  5. Stir continuously and boil for 2-3 minutes to eliminate the raw taste of the eggs.

  6. Peel and add tomatoes after soaking them in hot water for a few minutes.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the liquid when combined with the cream and cooked through.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup as they set gently with heat.
Shin of veal
Releases gelatin and flavor into the broth during long simmering.

The step that matters

Boil the egg-cream mixture after adding it back. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, but they must reach a boil to lose their raw taste. Stirring constantly while gradually tempering with hot soup keeps the mixture smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ham, veal, cream, flour, egg, parsley. 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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