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While Soup

A hearty soup made with veal, ham, vegetables, bread, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 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 ↓

While Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine stock, veal, ham, onions, carrot, celery, mace, and herbs in a saucepan.

  2. Boil gently for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the soup.

Make the thickening

  1. Pound the white flesh of a cold fowl with 1 ounce butter.

  2. Soak 1 slice of bread in boiling milk until smooth.

  3. Add the mixture to the soup.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix egg yolks with cream and arrowroot.

  2. Add the mixture to the soup.

  3. Heat gently without boiling.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and a little sugar.

  5. Remove flesh from remnants of roasted or boiled fowl, excluding skin.

  6. Mix flesh with soaked bread crumbs.

  7. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  8. Pass through a fine sieve.

  9. Add enough stock to achieve desired consistency.

  10. Warm without boiling.

  11. Stir in 2 beaten egg yolks mixed with ½ cup cream.

  12. Serve with fried bread dice or boiled peas or carrots, optionally garnish with blanched almonds.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and enrich it into a smooth, creamy texture when heated gently.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the soup.
Arrowroot
Thickens the soup into a glossy, smooth consistency without clouding it.
Bread
Soaked in milk and pounded, it gives body and a soft, smooth texture to the soup.
Fowl
Pounded white flesh adds body and a delicate, smooth texture to the soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Warm without boiling. Egg yolks and cream curdle and turn grainy if they boil, so the soup must be heated gently once they are added to keep it smooth.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, celery, mace, butter, bread):

  1. Carrotthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, celery, mace, butter, bread. 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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