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A White Soup

A clear soup made with veal, hen, ham, milk, cream, and seasoned with mace, white pepper, and Cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

A White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine veal, hen, ham, mace, white pepper, celery, onion, and anchovy in a pot.

  2. Cover with sufficient water and simmer on low heat until reduced to 2 quarts.

  3. Strain the soup and let it cool.

  4. Skim off the fat.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, soak the crumb of the penny loaf in milk until soft.

  2. Add the soaked bread to the strained soup.

  3. In a mortar, beat the egg yolks and blanched almonds with a little Cayenne pepper.

  4. Add the mixture to the soup.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Strain again.

  7. Stir in the cream.

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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Corn + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,205 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Onion + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 body and richness to the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup as they set gently with heat, adding richness.
Blanched almonds
Add body and a creamy texture when ground into the mixture.
Penny loaf crumb
Soaked in milk, it adds body and helps thicken the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil after adding the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and can curdle or turn grainy if the soup boils hard after they are added, so the soup should be brought up to heat carefully and not left to boil.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, mace, corn, celery, onion, anchovy):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, mace, corn, celery, onion, anchovy. 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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