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Soup a LA Heine

A hearty beef and veal broth with cream, almonds, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine veal, beef, and water in a large pot.

  2. Add a little salt and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  4. Add onions, carrots, celery, parsnip, leek, and thyme.

  5. Let it stew until the meat is tender.

  6. Strain the broth through a fine sieve.

  7. Let it sit for 30 minutes.

  8. Skim off the fat.

Make the almond and cream thickening

  1. Boil the cream.

  2. Pour the cream over the crumb of the loaf until soaked.

  3. Blanch the almonds.

  4. Finely grind the almonds.

  5. Add a little cream to prevent boiling.

  6. Beat the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs with the soaked loaf.

  7. Mix well.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the broth to the pot.

  2. Add the almond mixture.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing to extract flavor.

  4. Heat the mixture.

  5. Stir until it boils.

  6. Skim off any froth.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,096 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Parsnip + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsnip + leektop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Gives the broth body and a rich, savoury flavour as it simmers.
Lean beef
Releases flavour into the broth and becomes tender during the long stew.
Almonds
Ground into the soup, they add body and a nutty, creamy texture.
Small loaf
Soaked in cream, its crumb thickens the soup and gives it a smooth body.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Beaten with the soaked bread, they enrich the soup and add a creamy texture.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the flavour, while moistening the bread and almonds.

The step that matters

Stir until it boils, after adding the almond mixture. Once the cream and egg yolks are in, the mixture can curdle or scorch if it boils too hard or sits on the heat unattended. Heat gently and stir constantly so it thickens smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, carrot, celery, parsnip, leek, thyme):

  1. Turnipbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, carrot, celery, parsnip, leek, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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