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An Excellent White Soup

A clear soup made from mutton, veal, bones, gammon, herbs, lemon peel, onions, mace, white pepper, and water, thickened with almonds, bread, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

An Excellent White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the mutton, veal, cleaned shank bones, gammon, sweet herbs, lemon peel, onions, mace, white pepper, and water in a large pot.

  2. Boil until the meat falls apart.

  3. Let the soup cool overnight.

  4. Remove the fat and sediment.

  5. Transfer the clear jelly to a saucepan.

Prepare the thickening

  1. If using macaroni, soak it in cold water.

  2. Blanch the almonds.

  3. Grind the blanched almonds to a paste with a little water.

  4. Mince the veal or chicken.

  5. Mix the minced veal or chicken with the stale bread.

  6. Combine this mixture with the cream, lemon peel, and powdered mace.

  7. Boil the mixture for a few minutes.

  8. Add a pint of the soup to the thickening.

  9. Strain the mixture through a coarse sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the soaked macaroni to the soup and cook until tender.

  2. Mix the strained mixture back into the soup.

  3. Boil the soup for an additional 30 minutes.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

  4. Onion + almondtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the finished soup.
Stale white bread
Soaks up liquid and helps thicken the minced meat mixture into a smooth binder.
Sweet almonds
Grinds into a paste that adds body and a mild, nutty sweetness.
Mutton shank bones
Release gelatin and flavour into the stock, giving it body and a jelly-like set.

The step that matters

Strain the thickening through a coarse sieve. Straining removes stringy meat and lumps so the cream and bread mixture blends into a smooth soup. Skipping it leaves a grainy texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, veal, lemon, onion, mace, almond, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, veal, lemon, onion, mace, almond, bread. 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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