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White Soup

A veal stock thickened with almonds, cream, and egg, seasoned with thyme, cloves, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the veal, ham, onions, thyme, cloves, and mace in a large pot.

  2. Stew for 12 to 14 hours until the stock is rich; add an old fowl for extra richness if desired.

  3. Remove from heat, let cool, then skim off the fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the pounded almonds and bring to a slow boil.

  2. Thicken with the cream and beaten egg, and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes 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. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Thyme + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Long stewing releases gelatin and flavor, giving the stock its rich body.
Almonds
Ground almonds add body and a nutty flavor to the soup.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rounded texture and mellows the savory stock.
Egg
Its proteins set when heated, thickening the soup and giving it a silky texture.

The step that matters

Thickening with the cream and beaten egg. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle or turn grainy if the soup boils hard. Keeping the boil slow and gentle helps the thickening stay smooth.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, thyme, clove, mace, cream):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, thyme, clove, mace, 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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