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Velvet Soup

A creamy chicken and almond soup with spices and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Velvet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the stock

  1. Combine chicken stock, bread crumbs, celery, mace, cinnamon, bay leaf, parsley, onion, carrot, and salt in a pot.

  2. Cook for 1 hour.

Add the chicken and almonds

  1. Pound chicken breast and almonds into a paste.

  2. Add the paste to the stock.

  3. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.

  4. Mash the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Stir in the hot cream.

  2. Cook flour and butter together in a separate pan.

  3. Slowly add the stock mixture while stirring well.

  4. Season with pepper and additional salt if needed.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavors of the soup.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and help give the soup body.
Almonds
Pounded into a paste, they add body and a rich, nutty texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Flour
Starch that thickens the stock when cooked with butter.
Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form a roux for thickening.

The step that matters

Slowly add the stock mixture while stirring well. Flour starch clumps when hit with liquid all at once. Adding the liquid gradually while stirring disperses the starch evenly, so the thickened soup comes out smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, bread, clove, cinnamon, carrot, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, bread, clove, cinnamon, carrot, parsley. 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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