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Veal Soup

A hearty soup made with veal knuckle, ham or bacon, vegetables, herbs, and dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Veal Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash the knuckle of veal and break up the bones.

  2. Put the veal and ham or bacon in a pot and cover with water.

  3. Cook until the meat is ready to drop from the bones, then strain the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the soup to the pot and add celery, onions, sweet herbs, carrot, turnip, and black peppers.

  2. Simmer for an hour before serving and add dumplings.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Knuckle of veal
Its bones and connective tissue release gelatin and flavor into the broth as it cooks.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat and savory depth to the broth.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma as they soften into the soup.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor that builds the soup's savory base.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the simmered broth.

The step that matters

Cooking the meat until it is ready to drop from the bones. Gelatin from the bones and connective tissue only dissolves into the liquid with long, gentle cooking. Stopping early leaves a thin broth with less body and flavor.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, meat, celery, carrot, turnip, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, meat, celery, carrot, turnip, pepper. 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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