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Soup

Modern Cookery

A soup made with veal, ham, chicken, herbs, carrots, onions, mace, and cream, thickened with arrow-root.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Prepare stock by simmering veal, ham, water, herbs, carrots, onions, mace, peppercorns, and salt for 5 hours.

  2. Add fowls or pullets and cook for 1 to 1½ hours.

  3. Strain the stock and let it cool, skimming off any fat.

Make the soup

  1. In a small portion of boiling stock, steep the bread for a few minutes, then drain it.

  2. Pound the bread with the chicken until well blended.

  3. Gradually mix in the stock until smooth.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a clean pot.

  5. Heat the mixture and stir in boiling cream.

  6. If the soup is not thick enough, mix arrow-root with cold milk or stock and add it.

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 + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Gives the stock its body and rich, meaty flavour.
Fowls or pullets
Adds chicken flavour and body to the stock and the soup.
Bread
Soaked and pounded, it thickens the soup and gives it a smooth texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Arrow-root
Starch that thickens the soup further if it is not thick enough.

The step that matters

Stirring in the boiling cream. Adding cream to a very hot soup can cause it to curdle or split; heating it gently and keeping the soup below a hard boil keeps the cream smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, onion, bread, cream, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, onion, bread, cream, milk. 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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