Name: White Soup
Ingredients: 1 knuckle of veal; ¼ pound macaroni; 1 pint cream; lemon peel; mace

Why it works: Veal and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,580 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the knuckle of veal in water for three hours.
Add the macaroni and cook until done.
Stir in the cream, lemon peel, and mace before serving.

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.

Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,761 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,009 recipes
Lemon + macetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,315 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,202 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle: Releases flavour and body into the broth during long simmering.
Macaroni: Adds starch and bulk, thickening the soup slightly and giving it substance.
Cream: Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.

“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.