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White Soup

A clear soup made from simmered chicken bones, veal, water, milk, egg, and farina, seasoned with salt, pepper, onion, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cover the chicken bones, minced veal, parsley, and onion with cold water and simmer for three hours until reduced to two quarts.

  2. Strain the liquid and return it to the pot; season with salt and pepper.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil gently and skim for ten minutes before adding the milk and boiled farina.

  2. Simmer for another ten minutes; take out a cupful and mix it with the beaten egg.

  3. Return the egg mixture to the soup, cover, and let it sit off the heat for two minutes 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the soup gently and adds richness when mixed in at the end.
Farina
Starch that thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, lightening the color of the broth.
Chicken bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the water, forming the body of the stock.
Veal
Adds savory meaty flavor and gelatin to the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture. Egg thickens when heated, but if the soup is too hot or boils after the egg goes in, it can curdle and turn grainy. Tempering the egg with hot soup first and then letting it sit off the heat keeps it smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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