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Almond Soup

A soup made from veal knuckle stock, almonds, rice flour, and cream, seasoned with spices and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Almond Soup

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 ↓

Almond Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock and almond base

  1. Cook the knuckle of veal in a pot until tender.

  2. Remove the meat and let it cool for pounding.

  3. Put the bones back into the pot to make stock.

  4. Prepare the almonds and mix with 3 ounces of white meat and 3 ounces of panada for each quart of soup.

  5. Add 2 teaspoons of rice flour to the mixture.

  6. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve with a little rich cream.

Finish the soup

  1. Gradually mix it into the soup stock.

  2. Let it simmer without boiling until the rice flour thickens.

  3. Season the soup before adding the cream, as it will lower the seasoning.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

  3. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  4. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup once pounded and sieved.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup as it simmers, giving it a smooth body.
Rich cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Veal knuckle
Provides meat and gelatin for a rich, full-bodied stock.

The step that matters

Let it simmer without boiling. Boiling can break the thickened mixture and make the soup grainy or uneven, while gentle simmering lets the rice flour swell and thicken smoothly.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, rice, flour, ham):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, rice, flour, ham. 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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