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Almond Cream Soup

A soup made from ground almonds, stock, celery, parsley, and topped with whipped sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Almond Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the almonds fine, adding a few drops of stock to prevent oiliness.

  2. Combine the ground almonds with the stock, celery, and parsley in a saucepan.

Simmer and serve

  1. Heat the mixture and let it simmer on low for 30 minutes.

  2. Whip the sweet cream to stiff peaks and place it in a soup tureen.

  3. Strain the hot soup over the whipped cream 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Almond + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

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

  3. Almond + celerytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Ground into a paste that thickens the stock and gives the soup its body and nutty flavour.
Seasoned stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Sweet cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it adds richness and a light, airy topping to the hot soup.

The step that matters

Adding stock while pounding the almonds. Almonds release oil as they are ground, and a few drops of liquid keep the paste from turning greasy and help it blend smoothly into the soup.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, parsley, cream):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, parsley, cream. 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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