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Veal Soup

A hearty veal soup made with veal, ham, celery, onion, mace, peppercorns, rice, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,668 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a stewpan, combine veal pieces, bones, ham, celery, onion, mace, peppercorns, salt, and rice.

  2. Pour in the cold stock or water and bring to a gentle simmer.

Simmer and finish

  1. Let the soup simmer for 3 to 4 hours, skimming off any scum that rises.

  2. Strain the stock and season with salt, white pepper, lemon juice, and pounded mace as needed.

  3. Thicken the soup with white thickening if desired.

  4. Serve with boiled rice, sippets, or forcemeat balls, and garnish with parsley and butter or egg sauce.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Celery + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin and flavour into the stock, giving the soup body and richness during long simmering.
Rice
Softens and slightly thickens the soup as it cooks, adding body to the broth.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the stock as it simmers.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aroma as it cooks slowly into the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming off the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise during simmering. Removing it keeps the stock clear and free of off flavours; letting it boil rather than gently simmer can cloud the broth and emulsify fat into it.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, celery, onion, clove, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, celery, onion, clove, rice. 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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