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White Soup

A clear veal and ham broth flavored with mace, nutmeg, onions, celery, almonds, cream, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Break the bones of the veal and ham.

  2. Stew the meat gently with water until it is done and the soup is strong.

  3. Skim and strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  4. If letting it sit overnight, pour into an earthen vessel and remove the fat in the morning.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add the pounded almonds and boil briefly, then strain again.

  2. Mix the cream and egg yolk in the tureen, then pour the hot soup over it carefully to avoid curdling.

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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Nutmeg + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal scrag or knuckle
Gives the soup its body and rich meat flavour as it stews.
Lean ham
Adds savoury depth to the stock.
Sweet almonds
Thicken the soup slightly and add a smooth, nutty richness.
Cream
Adds fat and a silky, smooth texture to the soup.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the cream when combined with the soup.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot soup over the cream and egg yolk. Egg yolk sets when heated, so adding hot soup too quickly or without mixing can scramble it and curdle the soup. Pour slowly while stirring so the yolk warms gradually and stays smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, nutmeg, onion, celery, sugar, almond):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, nutmeg, onion, celery, sugar, almond. 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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