Skip to main content
Main

Westerfield White Soup

A veal bone broth with cream, vermicelli, almonds, and spices, served with a French roll.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: White pepper and mace 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 ↓

Westerfield White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Break the bone of the veal knuckle in one or two places and place it in a pot with 3 quarts of cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum, then add the salt, onion, white pepper, mace, and cayenne.

  3. Simmer slowly until the soup reduces by one-third, then strain and let cool.

  4. Once cooled, remove the fat and sediment, then reheat in a clean pot.

Finish and serve

  1. When boiling, mix in the cream blended with arrowroot, the cooked vermicelli, and the sliced almonds. Simmer for 1 minute and serve immediately with a French roll.

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. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Corn + arrowroottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + arrowroottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and flavour into the stock, giving the soup body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the soup.
Arrowroot
Thickens the soup into a light, glossy body when it is brought to a boil.
Vermicelli
Adds a soft, starchy bite that absorbs some of the soup.
Blanched almonds
Contribute a mild, nutty flavour and a slight crunch.

The step that matters

Adding the arrowroot-thickened cream. Arrowroot thickens best when boiled briefly and then held just at a simmer; boiling too long after the cream goes in can break the emulsion and thin or curdle the soup.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, corn, mace, pepper, cream, arrowroot):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, corn, mace, pepper, cream, arrowroot. 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.

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesAlmond SoupAlmond Soup60 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipes