Skip to main content
Main

Italian Soup

A soup made with Italian paste, veal stock, egg yolks, cream, béchamel, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Italian Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Blanch the Italian paste and place it in a stewpan with enough veal stock for the desired quantity.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes.

Finish the soup

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a pint of boiled cream.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Add the béchamel.

  4. Remove the pan from the heat.

  5. Stir in the egg mixture.

  6. Return the pan to the heat.

  7. Stir until it reaches a boil to prevent curdling.

  8. Add a lump of sugar and salt for 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.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

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

  5. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Italian paste
Forms the body of the soup and absorbs the stock as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup when gently heated, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Boiled cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smooth, mellow mouthfeel.
Béchamel
Adds body and creaminess to the soup.

The step that matters

Return the pan to the heat gently and stir until it just boils. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but overheating scrambles their proteins and causes curdling, so the pan must be stirred constantly as it comes up to a boil.

“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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes