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Almond Soup

A soup made from beef or veal stock, almonds, vermicelli, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Almond Soup

Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Almond Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the beef or veal, vegetables, and spices in enough water to cover them until the meat is very tender and the gravy is strong.

  2. Strain the gravy and return it to the pot with 2 quarts of water and the vermicelli.

  3. Boil until the vermicelli is cooked.

Prepare the almond base

  1. Blanch and finely pound the almonds, mixing them with a little soup to prevent oiliness.

  2. Continue to pound the almonds, gradually adding more soup until fully combined.

  3. Let the soup cool slightly, then strain it through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the strained soup to the heat, stirring frequently, and serve hot.

  2. Just before serving, 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.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Clove + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the body and nutty flavour of the soup when pounded and strained.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken and emulsify the soup's texture.
Lean beef or veal
Releases gelatin and flavour into the stock, giving the soup its savoury base.
Vermicelli
Adds starchy body and soft texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Mixing the almonds with soup while pounding. Almonds are oily; adding soup gradually while pounding keeps the paste emulsified and stops the soup tasting greasy or separating.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, almond, egg, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, almond, egg, cream. 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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