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White Soup

A clear broth of veal and mutton thickened with potato flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and mutton are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,394 recipes. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Chop the veal and mutton into small pieces.

  2. Boil the meat in water until tender, then strain and set aside to cool.

  3. Remove the fat from the cooled broth.

Finish the soup

  1. Bring the broth to a boil with the lid off, skimming off any froth that rises.

  2. Mix the potato flour with a little cold broth or water until smooth, then stir it into the boiling soup.

  3. Add salt to taste and serve.

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. Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  2. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

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

  4. Veal + potatotop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

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

  5. Veal + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal neck
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it cooks down.
Mutton
Adds a richer, more savoury meat flavour to the broth.
Potato flour
Thickens the broth into a lightly silky soup when stirred in while boiling.

The step that matters

Stirring in the potato flour. Starch clumps if added dry or unmixed. Mixing it smooth with cold liquid first lets the granules disperse, so they thicken the boiling soup evenly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mutton, flour. 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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