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Thickening for White Soup

A thickening mixture of almonds, veal or chicken, stale bread, mace, lemon peel, and cream for white soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Thickening for White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds in boiling water to loosen the skins, then remove the skins.

  2. In a mortar, beat the almonds with 1 tablespoon of cold water until a paste forms.

Make the thickener

  1. Chop the veal or chicken finely and crumble the stale bread.

  2. Combine the chopped meat, crumbled bread, almond paste, essence of mace, and essence of lemon peel in the mortar.

  3. Add the thick cream and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Stir in the soup and strain through a coarse sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the strained mixture to the soup half an hour 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. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

  5. Almond + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Their ground paste gives the soup body and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Stale white bread
Absorbs liquid and helps thicken the mixture as it is cooked.
Dressed veal or chicken
Adds meaty body and savoury flavour to the thickened soup.
Thick cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smoother, silkier texture.

The step that matters

Simmering the thickener with cream. Stirring constantly while simmering keeps the cream and starches from catching on the base and scorching, and gives an even, smooth thickening before the mixture is strained.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, veal, bread, lemon, cream. 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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