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White Soup

A clear veal broth with vegetables and vermicelli, finished with milk or cream and beaten egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the veal, water, celery, onions, carrots, and turnips.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer until reduced to 2 quarts.

  3. Strain the liquid and remove all the fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the milk or cream, beaten egg yolks, and vermicelli.

  2. Let it boil briefly, then serve.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 broth body and richness.
Egg yolks
Thicken the broth slightly and add richness when stirred in.
Milk or cream
Adds fat and softness, mellowing the broth's flavour.
Vermicelli
Adds starch and body as it cooks in the broth.

The step that matters

Let it boil briefly after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but boiling too long or too hard can curdle them and leave the broth grainy. A brief boil is enough to cook the vermicelli and thicken the broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, celery, carrot, turnip, milk, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, carrot, turnip, milk, egg. 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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