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White Soup

A creamy chicken broth soup thickened with eggs and mashed potato, seasoned with salt and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,756 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg yolks and cream together in a tureen.

  2. Slowly pour in the boiling chicken broth while stirring.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt.

  4. Serve with croutons.

  5. Alternatively, mix the mashed potato with a little cold broth to form a paste.

  6. Stir the potato paste into the boiling broth until well combined.

  7. Pour the mixture over the cream in the tureen.

  8. Add diced veal or chicken.

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. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  2. Cream + potatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + potatotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and add richness as they cook gently in the hot broth.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the soup.
Chicken broth
Forms the liquid base and carries the main savory flavor.
Mashed potato
Its starch thickens the broth and gives it more body.

The step that matters

Slowly pour the boiling broth into the egg and cream mixture while stirring. Adding hot liquid gradually and stirring constantly warms the egg yolks evenly, so they thicken the soup smoothly instead of scrambling into lumps.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, 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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