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Soup

Wine Soup

A soup made with white wine, water, cornstarch, egg yolks, lemon, sugar, and sweetened egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Wine Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, mix the white wine, water, cornstarch, egg yolks, lemon juice and rind, and sugar over medium heat.

  2. Stir rapidly but do not let it boil for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and gently fold in the sweetened egg whites.

  2. Let the mixture cool 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. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup as they set with heat and enrich its body.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add a light, airy texture to the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid when heated, giving the soup body and preventing it from being thin.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the wine and lemon.
White wine
Provides the main flavour and liquid base of the soup.

The step that matters

Stir rapidly without letting it boil. Egg yolks can scramble and curdle if overheated, and cornstarch needs heat to thicken. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly, so the soup thickens smoothly without turning grainy or lumpy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, egg, sugar. 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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