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Game Soup

A hearty soup made from game bones, vegetables, barley, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Game Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Break the bones.

  2. Cut the game remains into small pieces.

  3. Put the bones into a stew-pan.

  4. Pour the stock over the bones.

  5. Add the diced carrot, onion, turnip, and celery.

  6. Let the soup boil.

  7. Skim the soup carefully.

  8. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  9. Strain the soup.

  10. Skim off the fat.

Prepare the barley and thicken

  1. Wash the barley.

  2. Boil the barley in a separate saucepan until done.

  3. Drain the barley.

  4. Set aside half of the barley.

  5. Pound the other half with the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

  6. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  7. Moisten the mixture with the cream.

  8. Gradually add the mixture to the soup.

  9. Stir over the fire until very hot, but do not allow it to boil.

Serve

  1. Add the remaining barley.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Carrot + celerytop 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. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Bones and trimmings of cold game
Provides the main meaty flavour as the stock simmers.
Barley
Adds body and a chewy, starchy texture to the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and smooths the thickened mixture into the soup.
Yolks of hard-boiled eggs
Pounded into the barley mixture, they add richness and help thicken the soup.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as the base vegetables soften.

The step that matters

Stir over the fire until very hot, but do not allow it to boil.. Once the cream and egg-yolk mixture goes into the soup, boiling can curdle the dairy and eggs, leaving the soup grainy and thin rather than smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, barley, cream, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, barley, cream, 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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