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Soup

Plain Veal Soup

A simple soup made with veal, pork, rice, celery, and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 16,012 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Veal Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the leg of veal with rice and pork.

  2. Remove the veal before seasoning the soup.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and sweet herbs if desired.

  4. Add a little celery for flavor.

  5. Just before serving, add the toast cut into small pieces.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,169 recipes

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

  3. Rice + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of veal
Provides the main meaty flavor and body of the broth as it simmers.
Rice
Thickens the soup slightly as its starch releases during boiling.
Pork
Adds richness and savory depth to the broth.
Toast
Adds body and texture when cut into pieces and added just before serving.

The step that matters

Remove the veal before seasoning the soup.. Seasoning while the meat is still in the pot can make the broth salty as it reduces, and removing the veal first lets the cook control the seasoning of the broth itself.

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, rice, pork, pepper):

  1. Sageabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Marjoramabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Turmericabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, pork, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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