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Soup

Chestnut Soup

A soup made with roasted chestnuts, French rolls, veal broth, pheasant, boiled chestnuts, egg yolks, cream, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chestnut Soup

Why it works: Chestnut and pheasant work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Chestnut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts and broth

  1. Peel the roasted chestnuts and pound them in a mortar.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the pounded chestnuts, the crumb of the French rolls, and the veal broth; bring to a boil.

  3. Rub the mixture through a tamis cloth.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the boned and scalded pheasant to the soup and simmer until tender.

  2. Add the boiled chestnuts to the soup.

  3. Five minutes before serving, stir in the egg yolks and cream; season with salt.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chestnut + pheasanttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pheasant + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Veal + pheasanttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Chestnut + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Chestnut + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Roasted chestnuts
Pounded into the soup to give it body and a sweet, nutty flavor.
French rolls
Their crumb thickens the broth and adds body to the soup.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Pheasant
Cooks in the soup to add savory meat flavor.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and add richness and smoothness when stirred in.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavor and texture of the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the soup is boiling when they go in. Adding them off the heat or at a gentle simmer, just before serving, keeps the soup smooth and creamy.

“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.

More chestnut soup recipes

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