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Veal Soup

A hearty veal broth with rice, celery root, parsley root, and greens, thickened with a roux and seasoned with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash the veal in cold water and place it in a soup kettle with enough cold water to cover it.

  2. Just before it begins to boil, skim the surface well.

  3. Cover the kettle and boil slowly for 2.5 hours.

  4. After 30 minutes, add the rice, celery root, parsley root, and soup greens.

Finish and serve

  1. After 2.5 hours, remove all the meat from the soup.

  2. In a skillet, heat the flour until it turns yellow (not brown), then add the butter.

  3. Stir in a small ladle of hot water and boil until thickened like cream.

  4. Stir this mixture into the soup and season with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Let it boil for an additional 5 minutes, then add the nutmeg to the soup tureen and pour in the soup.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of veal
Gives the broth its main meat flavor and body during the long simmer.
Flour
Toasted in butter and thickened with water, it gives the soup a creamy body.
Butter
Enriches the thickening roux, adding fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Rice
Adds starch that softens and gives the soup a slightly thicker texture.

The step that matters

Heating the flour. Flour must turn yellow, not brown, so it thickens smoothly without a toasted, bitter taste. Heating it gently in the skillet before adding butter and liquid helps prevent lumps.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, rice, parsley, flour, butter, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, parsley, flour, butter, nutmeg, pepper. 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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