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Rich White Soup

A creamy soup made with fowl, veal, almonds, bread crumbs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Rich White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Butter a soup pot and add the fowl pieces and veal.

  2. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, and mace, then cover with water.

  3. Stew slowly for 1 hour, skimming frequently.

  4. Remove the breasts and wings of the fowls.

  5. Chop the meat finely.

  6. Return the rest to the pot.

Make the thickening

  1. Soak the grated bread in warm milk.

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped chicken, soaked bread, egg yolks, and both types of almonds.

  3. Pound the mixture well in a mortar.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the soup from the meat and fowl.

  2. Stir in the mixture after reducing the soup to 2 quarts.

  3. Boil the cream or rich milk separately, then add it hot to the soup gradually.

  4. Let the soup simmer for a few more minutes.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Fat fowls
Provide the main meat and rich flavour for the stock.
Veal
Adds body and gelatin-rich depth to the stock.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help bind it into a smooth, thick texture.
Stale bread
Soaked in milk, it thickens the soup and gives it a soft body.
Cream or rich milk
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smooth, mellow texture.
Sweet and bitter almonds
Add nutty flavour and body to the thickened mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the cream or milk hot and gradually. Adding cold dairy quickly or all at once can curdle or separate it. Warming it and stirring it in slowly keeps the soup smooth and creamy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, bread, milk, egg, almond, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, bread, milk, egg, almond, cream. 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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