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Veal Soup

A clear soup made from a veal knuckle simmered with salt, rice, and finished with an egg yolk, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the knuckle of veal in 3 quarts of cold water.

  2. Add salt and raw rice.

  3. Simmer for 4 hours until reduced by half.

  4. Remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. In a tureen, mix the egg yolk with cream or milk.

  2. Add a small lump of butter.

  3. Strain the soup into the tureen, stirring continuously.

  4. Beat the mixture briefly 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Veal + ricetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and flavour into the water, giving the soup body and richness.
Raw rice
Releases starch as it cooks, helping thicken the broth slightly.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup when combined with cream or milk.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and softness, and mellows the broth when blended with the yolk.

The step that matters

Stirring the strained soup into the yolk and cream mixture. Adding hot liquid to egg yolk too quickly can scramble it. Stirring continuously while straining the soup in keeps the yolk smooth and evenly thickened instead of curdled.

“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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