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Bright Onion Soup

A clear veal broth flavored with onions, herbs, pepper, and clarified with egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bright Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the veal into small pieces, breaking all the bones, and wash well.

  2. Place the veal in a pot with pepper, salt, and water.

  3. Boil well, removing any scum that rises.

  4. Reduce the heat and let it simmer until the meat is tender.

  5. Strain the broth and remove the fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the soup herbs and adjust seasoning with more pepper and salt if needed.

  2. Bring to a boil again.

  3. Beat the egg white and use it to clarify the soup.

  4. Steep the sliced onions in boiling water, changing the water every 10 minutes for 30 to 40 minutes.

  5. Drain the onions and add them to the soup.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  3. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal shoulder
Breaks down into tender meat and gives the broth its body and savoury flavour.
Egg white
Coagulates as it heats, trapping cloudy particles so the broth becomes clear.
Patna onions
Steeping in changing water mellows their sharp taste and leaves a sweet, gentle onion flavour.

The step that matters

Clarifying with the egg white. Egg white proteins set when heated and trap suspended particles. Adding it to a broth that is still hot but not boiling, then stirring gently, lets the foam and particles gather for straining; vigorous stirring breaks the raft and leaves the soup cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, egg. 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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