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White Soup

A veal broth with rice, root vegetables, dove, almonds, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Combine veal and water in a large pot.

  2. Add salt.

  3. Simmer until scum rises.

  4. Skim off the scum.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add rice, parsnips, turnips, carrot, dove pieces, and mace.

  2. Simmer gently for several hours.

  3. Skim the soup.

  4. Strain the soup.

Thicken and finish

  1. Blend the almonds with 2 tablespoons of flour moistened with milk.

  2. Return the soup to the pot.

  3. Add the almond mixture.

  4. Let it boil again.

  5. Strain the soup once more.

  6. When serving, add ½ pint of cream to 1 quart of soup.

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. Parsnip + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsnip + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 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
Gives the soup its meaty body and rich, savoury flavour as it simmers.
Parsnips
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and a soft, vegetal flavour to the soup.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty richness and, once pounded into the soup, help give it a smooth, creamy body.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when blended with the almonds and milk.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished soup a smooth, mellow texture.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities released from the meat as it heats. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting; skimming again after the long simmer removes what rose later.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, rice, parsnip, turnip, carrot, almond, flour):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, parsnip, turnip, carrot, almond, flour. 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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