Skip to main content

Queen Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Queen Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean and draw the fowl, then place it in a saucepan with 3 quarts of water.

  2. Boil gently until tender, then remove the fowl and strain the broth, skimming off the fat.

  3. Wash and prepare the vegetables, then slice them.

  4. Melt ½ cup of butter in a stewpan, add the sliced vegetables, and cover.

  5. Cook gently for 15 minutes without browning.

  6. Add the chicken stock, herbs, spices, and seasoning.

  7. Simmer for 1 hour, then strain through a clean cloth.

  8. Return to a clean saucepan and bring to a boil.

  9. Mix 1 tablespoon of arrowroot with a little Madeira or water, then thicken the boiling soup with it.

  10. Add the strained juice of half a lemon and cook for 1-2 minutes.

  11. Prepare the calf's head as described and add to the soup 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, onion, carrot, celery, clove, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, onion, carrot, celery, clove, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like

Cream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipes