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Mushroom Soup

A veal and mushroom soup made with stock, butter, flour, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Mushroom Soup

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Crack the bones and mince the veal, onion, and parsley.

  2. Cover with cold water and boil gently for three hours, or until the stock has reduced by half.

  3. Strain the stock, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the sliced mushrooms and stew for twenty minutes.

  2. Mix the flour with a little cold water to make a paste, then add it to the soup along with the milk.

  3. When the soup thickens, beat in a cupful of the soup into the whipped eggs.

  4. Stir the egg mixture and butter back into the soup, let it almost boil, then serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 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

Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and flavor into the stock, giving the soup body.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells with heat.
Eggs
Enriches and thickens the soup when tempered and stirred in gently.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Mushrooms
Contribute their earthy flavor and texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture. Eggs curdle if they meet hot liquid directly. Beating a cupful of hot soup into the eggs first raises their temperature gradually, so they blend smoothly. The soup should then only come close to boiling, not boil hard, to keep the eggs silky.

Swap the onion

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

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

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