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Avesterfield White Soup

A clear veal broth thickened with cream and arrowroot, flavored with white pepper, mace, and cayenne, and finished with vermicelli and almonds.

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

Avesterfield 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 the cold water.

  2. Once the scum has cleared, add the salt, onion, white pepper, mace, and cayenne pepper.

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

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the fat and sediment, then reheat the soup in a clean pot.

  2. When boiling, mix in the cream blended with arrowroot, the cooked vermicelli, and the sliced almonds. Simmer for one 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 water, giving the soup body and a rich savoury base.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the soup.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream mixture so it stays smooth and lightly bodied when added to the hot soup.
Vermicelli
Adds starchy body and a soft texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and arrowroot mixture. Arrowroot thickens best when the liquid is hot and gently moving, but cream can split or curdle if it boils hard. Blend the arrowroot fully into the cream first, then add it while the soup is boiling gently and stir well so it thickens evenly without lumps.

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.

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