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Amber Soup or Bouillon

A clear broth made from soup bone, chicken, ham, vegetables, and egg whites, flavored with caramel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Amber Soup or Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine soup bone, chicken, ham, and cold water in a large pot. Bring to a boil and simmer slowly for 5 hours.

  2. Add chopped vegetables, cloves, and fried onion (with cloves stuck in it) to the pot. Cook for the last hour.

  3. Strain the soup into an earthen bowl and let it sit overnight.

Clarify and finish

  1. The next day, remove the fat and jelly, avoiding the sediment. Mix in the beaten egg whites and shells.

  2. Boil quickly for 30 seconds, then skim off the scum and egg whites without stirring the soup.

  3. The soup can be stored and reheated just before serving. Add a large tablespoon of caramel for color and flavor.

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites and shells collect impurities as they cook, clarifying the soup into a clearer broth.
Soup bone
Releases gelatin and flavor into the water during long simmering, giving the broth body.
Chicken
Adds meaty flavor and gelatin to the stock during the long simmer.
Caramel
Adds amber color and a deeper, toasted sweetness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boil quickly, then skim without stirring. Egg whites must coagulate and rise with the impurities; stirring breaks them up and cloudies the broth. A brief hard boil lifts the scum so it can be skimmed off cleanly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, onion, parsley, carrot, parsnip, celery):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, onion, parsley, carrot, parsnip, celery. 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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