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A Richer White Soup

A creamy soup made from almonds, roasted chicken, veal stock, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 ingredients
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A Richer White Soup

Why it works: Chicken and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,243 recipes. Both carry 3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

A Richer White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pound six ounces of sweet almonds very finely.

  2. Add six ounces of roasted chicken breasts (or partridges) and three ounces of the whitest bread soaked in a little veal broth and squeezed dry.

  3. Beat the mixture into an extremely smooth paste.

Make the soup

  1. Gradually pour in two quarts of boiling rich veal stock.

  2. Strain the soup through a fine hair sieve.

  3. Return the strained soup to the fire.

  4. Add one pint of thick cream.

  5. Serve as soon as the soup reaches the point of boiling.

Variation if cream is scarce

  1. If cream is scarce, increase the almonds to eight or ten ounces, reduce to a fine paste, pour in a pint of boiling stock, wring through a coarse cloth, double the proportion of meat and bread, and season the stock with mace and cayenne before adding.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

762Calories
51 gProtein
16 gFat
97 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 9 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chicken100g cooked165
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Vealnot in our table0
Macaroninot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  4. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Bread + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and rich, nutty flavour of the soup when pounded into a paste.
Roasted chicken breasts
Add savoury meat flavour and body to the almond paste.
Bread
Adds body and helps thicken the paste so it becomes smooth.
Veal stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.
Thick cream
Adds richness, silkiness and mellows the flavour at the end.

The step that matters

Serve as soon as the soup reaches the point of boiling. Cream-enriched soups can curdle or separate if they boil hard after the cream is added, so heating should stop once it just reaches a boil.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, chicken, bread, veal, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, chicken, bread, veal, 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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