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To Make a Soup a-In-Reine

A creamy soup made with veal, beef, almonds, cream, egg yolks, and French rolls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine veal, beef, water, and salt in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add onions, carrots, celery, parsnip, leek, and thyme.

  4. Boil until the meat is tender.

  5. Strain the broth through a fine sieve and let it sit for 30 minutes.

  6. Skim off the fat and set the clear broth aside.

Make the almond cream

  1. Heat the cream in a bowl and soak the crumbs of the French rolls in it.

  2. Blanch the almonds.

  3. Finely grind the almonds, adding a little cream to prevent oiling.

  4. Combine the ground almonds, egg yolks, and soaked roll crumbs in another bowl.

  5. Mix the mixture well.

  6. Heat the broth and pour it over the almond mixture.

  7. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  8. Return the strained mixture to the pot, adding more cream to achieve a white color.

  9. Heat over low heat, stirring until it boils.

  10. Skim off any froth.

Serve

  1. Soak the tops of the French rolls in melted butter until crisp but not brown.

  2. Place a little hot soup in the bottom of a tureen.

  3. Add the crispy roll.

  4. Pour the hot soup over it.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,096 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Parsnip + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsnip + leektop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Ground almonds give the soup its body, rich flavor and thick, creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and help bind the almond mixture into a smooth, creamy soup.
French rolls
Soaked crumbs thicken the almond mixture, and crisp buttered tops are served as a garnish.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, and lightens the soup to a white color.
Beef
Long simmering releases flavor and gelatin into the broth, giving it body.

The step that matters

Heating the almond mixture with the broth. Cream and almonds can separate or curdle if overheated, so heat gently over low heat while stirring until it just boils and stays smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, carrot, celery, parsnip, leek, thyme):

  1. Turnipbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, carrot, celery, parsnip, leek, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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