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White Soup

A creamy stock-based soup with milk, egg yolks, sweet almonds, and cayenne pepper, optionally thickened with rice, macaroni, or vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the crumb of a roll in the milk.

  2. In a mortar, beat the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs with the sweet almonds and cayenne pepper until well combined.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the stock and stir well.

Add the optional ingredients

  1. If using rice, wash and blanch it in boiling water, then add it to the soup and let it stew until it swells.

  2. If using macaroni, soak it in cold water and add it to the soup until tender.

  3. Vermicelli can be added after thickening the soup.

  4. For added flavor, pound the white meat from the stock and mix it into the soup.

Serve

  1. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese if desired.

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. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Rice + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together879 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Cooked yolks mash into the stock and give the soup body and a rich, creamy thickness.
Sweet almonds
Ground almonds add nutty flavor and body, helping thicken the soup.
Roll crumb
Bread crumb soaked in milk adds body and softens the texture of the soup.
Stock
The liquid base that carries the flavors of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Beating the yolks with the almonds in the mortar. Yolks and almonds must be ground until fully smooth, or lumps will not dissolve into the stock and the soup will turn grainy rather than creamy.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, pepper, rice, parmesan cheese):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Peasfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, pepper, rice, parmesan cheese. 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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