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German Soup

A veal bone soup with turnips, carrot, onions, lemon, thyme, celery, cloves, egg yolks, cream, vermicelli, lean ham, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

German Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal or veal bones in good stock.

  2. Add turnips, carrot, onions, lemon, thyme, celery, and cloves.

  3. Let it boil well, then strain the mixture.

Finish the soup

  1. Thicken the soup and add egg yolks and thick cream.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add vermicelli, lean ham, and mace for extra 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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

Veal knuckle or veal bones
Gives the stock its meaty body and rich flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and give it a smooth, velvety texture.
Thick cream
Adds richness and softens the flavor of the soup.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth.
Onions
Build savory depth and aroma in the broth.

The step that matters

Thickening with egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks can scramble if the soup is too hot when they are added. Stirring them in gently, off the boil, lets them thicken the soup smoothly into a custard-like texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, turnip, carrot, lemon, thyme, celery, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, turnip, carrot, lemon, thyme, celery, clove. 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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