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Egg Soup

A savory soup made with eggs, cream, broth, stock, vegetables, spices, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Egg Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the yolks of 5 eggs.

  2. Stir the beaten yolks into 2 cups of boiling cream or rich milk.

  3. Allow the mixture to thicken without curdling.

  4. Add 4 cups of clear broth to the mixture.

Build the soup

  1. Cut the onions, apple, carrot, and celery.

  2. Fry the cut vegetables in 2 ounces of butter over low heat.

  3. Add the curry paste, curry powder, seasoning, allspice, mace, and roux. Mix well.

  4. Pour in the boiling stock and stir until it boils.

  5. Strain the soup and set aside to clear.

  6. Add hard-boiled eggs, shelled, to 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the cream or milk and give the soup body without curdling when heated gently.
Cream or rich milk
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smooth, mellow texture.
Butter
Fat for frying the vegetables, carrying their flavour into the soup.
Roux
Flour and fat mixture that thickens the soup and gives it a smooth body.
Curry powder
Provides the warm, aromatic spice flavour that defines the soup.
Rice
Adds starch that gives the soup body and a soft, filling texture.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to thicken without curdling. Egg yolks set at about 70°C and scramble if heated too quickly or too hot. Stirring constantly over gentle heat keeps the custard smooth and thickened.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, onion, carrot, celery, butter, allspice):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, onion, carrot, celery, butter, allspice. 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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