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Soup

Egg Soup

A soup of seasoned broth thickened with beaten eggs, served with diced stale bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Egg Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cool the broth from the boiled chicken feet and giblets.

  2. Skim the broth.

  3. Set the broth over the heat and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Once it boils, remove from heat.

Thicken the eggs

  1. Pour over the beaten eggs.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a jar.

  3. Place the jar in boiling water, stirring until it thickens.

Serve

  1. In a separate saucepan, heat any leftover soup or a small amount of milk thickened with flour and butter.

  2. Pour the heated mixture into a tureen.

  3. Add the egg-broth.

  4. Stir in the diced stale bread.

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

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  4. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and thicken as they heat, giving the soup a light, body-rich texture.
Broth
Provides the liquid and main savoury flavour base for the soup.
Stale bread
Soaks up liquid and adds a soft, slightly chewy texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Thickening the eggs in the jar. Eggs set gently at temperatures just below boiling. Overheating or stirring too vigorously can make them curdle or turn grainy, so the mixture should thicken smoothly rather than scramble.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, pepper, bread. 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.

More egg soup recipes

Balls 5Poached 5Chicken 3Lamb 3 See all 48 →

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