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Westerfibld White Soup

A clear veal broth with cream, vermicelli, almonds, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Westerfibld White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Break the bone of the veal knuckle in one or two places and place it in a pot with the cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum that forms.

  3. Add the salt, onions, white pepper, mace, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Simmer slowly until the soup reduces by one-third.

  5. Strain the soup and let it cool, then remove the fat and sediment.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the strained soup in a clean pot.

  2. In a bowl, mix the cream with the arrowroot until smooth.

  3. When the soup is boiling, stir in the cream mixture, cooked vermicelli, and sliced almonds.

  4. Simmer for one minute and serve immediately with a French roll.

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. Arrowroot + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + arrowroottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + arrowroottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together329 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + almondtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 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

Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and flavour into the water, giving the soup body and richness.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished soup a smooth, velvety texture.
Arrowroot
Thickens the soup when heated, giving it a silky body without a floury taste.
Vermicelli
Adds soft starchy strands that absorb some broth and give bite.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and arrowroot mixture. Arrowroot must be fully smoothed into the cream first, then stirred into boiling soup. Lumps form if it is added to hot liquid unmixed, and the thickener needs a brief simmer to reach full thickness.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, pepper, cream, arrowroot, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper, cream, arrowroot, almond. 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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