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White Soup

A clear broth of veal and mutton, thickened with potato flour and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the veal and mutton into small pieces.

  2. Put the meat into a saucepan with water, onions, turnip, and salt.

Make the broth

  1. Bring to a boil, skim thoroughly, and simmer for 3 hours.

  2. Strain the broth and let it cool to remove the fat.

Thicken and serve

  1. Reheat the broth, stir in the potato flour mixed with milk or cream, and let it thicken.

  2. Season to taste and serve.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal scrag end of neck
Provides meat flavour and gelatin that enriches the broth's body as it simmers.
Mutton scrag
Adds deeper meaty flavour to the broth during long simmering.
Onions
Contribute savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.
French potato flour
Starch that thickens the broth when heated, giving it body.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and softness, mellowing the broth's flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Skim thoroughly after boiling. Foam and impurities rise to the surface when the broth first boils. Removing them keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, and the later fat removal depends on a clean simmer.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mutton, onion, potato, flour, milk):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mutton, onion, potato, flour, milk. 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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