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Transparent Soup

A clear soup made from veal, sweet herbs, mace, almonds, and vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,761 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Transparent Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Slice the meat from the leg of veal as thin as possible.

  2. Break the bone into small pieces.

Make the broth

  1. Place the sliced meat and broken bones in a large pot with the sweet herbs, mace, and finely beaten almonds.

  2. Pour 1 gallon of boiling water into the pot.

  3. Let the mixture simmer over low heat for 12 hours, preferably overnight.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a double-bottomed saucepan.

  5. Simmer until reduced to 2 quarts, skimming off any foam that rises.

  6. Strain the soup and let it stand for 2 hours.

  7. Pour the strained soup into a clean saucepan, avoiding any sediment.

Finish and serve

  1. Steep the vermicelli in water.

  2. Boil the vermicelli.

  3. Add the boiled vermicelli to the soup before serving.

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. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Mace + almondtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,010 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Veal + almondtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together341 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of veal
Releases gelatin and flavour into the water, giving the broth body and savouriness.
Blanched garden almonds
Adds a delicate nutty aroma and a subtle richness to the clear broth.
Vermicelli
Provides starchy strands that add texture and substance to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam while reducing. Foam carries coagulated proteins and impurities; removing it as it rises keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting instead of cloudy or bitter.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Peasfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mace. 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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