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Plain White Soup

A clear soup made from lemon thyme, vegetables, and a stock enriched with almonds, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Plain White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine lemon thyme, onions, carrot, celery, turnip, white peppercorns, and mace in a pot.

  2. Add enough water to cover the ingredients and boil for about 2 hours, skimming frequently.

  3. Strain the stock; it should form a jelly.

  4. Remove the fat and sediment from the jelly, then place it in a saucepan.

  5. Boil the jelly for 30 minutes and serve over small French rolls or with macaroni or vermicelli.

Make the richer soup

  1. For a richer soup, blend blanched almonds with a little water to form a paste.

  2. Finely mince the cold roast fowl, hard-boiled egg yolks, and bread crumbs.

  3. Combine the almond paste, minced ingredients, and a pint of the stock in a pot.

  4. Add lemon peel and a scrape of nutmeg, then bring to a boil.

  5. Stir in a pint of boiling sweet cream and the remaining stock, keeping it just below boiling to avoid curdling.

  6. Strain through a sieve before serving.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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

Lemon-thyme
Gives the stock its characteristic herbal, citrusy aroma.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the stock as they cook down.
Sweet almonds
Blended into a paste, they thicken the soup and add body and richness.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Break down into the mixture, adding richness and a smooth, thickened texture.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smooth, mellow body.
Cold roast fowl
Provides the meat and protein that give the richer soup substance.

The step that matters

Keep the cream below boiling. Once the cream is added, boiling can cause dairy proteins to curdle and separate, leaving the soup grainy. Holding it just below a boil keeps it smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, thyme, onion, carrot, celery, turnip, almond):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, thyme, onion, carrot, celery, turnip, almond. 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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