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Cream Soup

A creamy soup made from calf's head broth, onion, parsley, mace, milk, egg yolks, and thickened with corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cream Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the calf's head until tender.

  2. Let the boiled calf's head cool.

  3. Skim the pot liquor.

  4. Add the sliced onion, parsley, and mace.

  5. Boil slowly for 2 hours.

  6. Strain the broth.

  7. Cool it.

  8. Skim off the fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Thicken slightly with corn starch.

  3. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks.

  4. Add the boiling milk.

  5. Pour into a heated tureen.

  6. Stir in the soup.

  7. 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head liquor
Provides the rich, gelatinous body and meaty flavour of the broth.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and give it a smooth, thickened, creamy texture when heated.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the savoury broth.
Corn starch
Thickens the broth slightly so it coats the spoon.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling milk to the beaten yolks. Egg yolks scramble if heated too fast. Mixing in the hot milk gradually, while beating, tempers them so the soup stays smooth and creamy rather than curdled.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, milk, egg, pepper, corn. 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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