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White Mushroom Soup

A veal-based soup with carrots, turnip, onion, herbs, and French mushrooms, finished with milk, cream, and a roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

White Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the veal stock

  1. Gash the veal and break the bone in several places.

  2. Combine the veal and water in a pot and bring to a slow boil, skimming carefully.

  3. Add the vegetables and skim again when it boils.

  4. Maintain a slow boil for 5 hours, then strain through muslin.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour together until bubbling, then cook for 1 minute while stirring.

  2. Quickly pour in 2 quarts of hot veal stock while stirring, and boil for 1 minute until thick.

  3. Stir in the boiled milk and cream without boiling.

  4. The next day, heat the soup, skim it, and add the can of French mushrooms.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, velvety base for the soup.
Butter
Forms the roux with flour and adds richness and a rounded flavour.
Cream
Adds fat and a smooth, rich texture to the finished soup.
Boiled new milk
Adds body and mild sweetness, softening the savoury stock.
Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin and flavour into the water during the long simmer, giving the stock body.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk and cream without boiling. Boiling dairy can make it curdle or separate and taste scorched, so the milk and cream should be stirred in off the boil and kept hot, not bubbling.

Swap the thyme

The recipe marks thyme as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, parsley, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, parsley, flour. 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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