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Victoria Soup

A hearty soup made with fowl, veal, ham, vegetables, and enriched with butter, flour, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Victoria Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wipe and clean the fowl, then disjoint it.

  2. Wipe the veal, remove it from the bone, and cut it into small pieces.

  3. Put the meat, bone, and water in a kettle.

  4. Heat the contents slowly to boiling and skim the surface.

  5. Cook slowly for four hours.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the vegetables and ham in one tablespoon of butter for five minutes.

  2. Add the cooked vegetables and ham to the soup with peppercorns and salt.

  3. Cook the soup for one hour.

  4. Strain the soup and cool it.

  5. Remove the fat from the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat three cups of stock.

  2. Thicken the stock with the remaining butter and flour cooked together.

  3. Add the cream and egg yolks just before serving.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Fowl
Gives the stock its body and rich poultry flavor as it simmers for hours.
Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and savory depth into the stock, giving it body.
Butter
Carries the flour for the thickener and adds richness to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock when cooked with butter into a roux.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding smoothness and a richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Add the cream and egg yolks just before serving. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they boil, so the soup should be hot but not boiling when they are stirred in to keep it smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, butter, flour, parsley, cream):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, butter, flour, 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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