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To Make Almond Soup

A veal-based soup with ground almonds, mace, peppercorns, and a cream‑egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Make Almond Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Cut the veal into pieces and boil it with water until reduced to 2 quarts.

  2. Add mace, peppercorns, and ground almonds, along with cayenne and salt to taste.

Prepare the rolls and almonds

  1. Prepare the French rolls by cutting a few almonds lengthwise and sticking them into the rolls.

  2. Boil the almonds with the soup but do not boil the rolls.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a fine sieve into a tureen, placing the rolls inside.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and flour together, then mix in the cream without boiling.

  3. Pour the cream mixture into the soup in the tureen.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Almond + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,566 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Veal
Gives the broth its meaty body and rich flavour as it reduces.
Jordan almonds
Ground almonds thicken the soup and add nutty flavour and body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the cream mixture, giving the soup a smooth, velvety texture.
Flour
Stabilises the egg and cream mixture so it thickens without curdling.
Thick cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the finished soup a smooth, mellow texture.

The step that matters

Mixing in the cream without boiling. Egg yolks curdle and turn grainy if they get too hot. Keeping the cream mixture off the boil lets it thicken smoothly into the soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, almond, pepper, egg, flour, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, almond, pepper, egg, flour, 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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