Skip to main content
Main

Almond Soup

A hearty soup made with almonds, veal, ham, onions, and spices, finished with rice and roasted ox rumps.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Almond Soup

Why it works: Meat and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Almond Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond base

  1. Blanch and dry the almonds.

  2. Beat the almonds in a mortar with a little sweet cream, veal soup, and the white meat of the boiled fowl.

  3. Pound the hard boiled egg in the mortar with a little cold cream until smooth.

  4. Mix the egg mixture with the almond mixture.

Make the soup

  1. In a large stewpan, combine the ham and veal, add water, and bring to a boil. Skim off any scum.

  2. Add the onions, black pepper, thyme, and winter savory.

  3. Let it stew until rich.

  4. Cut the ox rumps into 2-inch pieces. Fry the pieces in butter until browned.

  5. Strain and skim the soup.

  6. Return it to a clean pot and boil until rich.

  7. Soak the rice in water. Drain the rice.

  8. Add the rice and the rumps to the soup.

  9. Boil together for 10 minutes.

  10. Season with white pepper, Cayenne, and salt to taste.

  11. Serve with the rumps in 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.

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. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Almond + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

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

  3. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Ground into a paste that gives the soup its body and creamy, nutty flavour.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and smoothness, carrying the almond paste into a silky texture.
Veal
Provides meaty flavour and gelatin that gives the soup body as it stews.
Boiled fowl
Adds savoury meat flavour and tender protein to the almond base.
Rice
Thickens the soup as it cooks and adds a soft, starchy body.
Hard boiled egg
Mashed smooth with cream to enrich the almond mixture and add body.

The step that matters

Blanch and dry the almonds. Skins left on add bitterness and a grainy texture, and damp almonds grind into a pasty mass rather than a smooth paste that blends evenly into the soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, cream, veal, meat, egg, ham, onion):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cream, veal, meat, egg, ham, onion. 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.

More almond soup recipes

Chicken 5White 3 See all 79 →

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipes