Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni Soup

A hearty soup of veal, macaroni, and cream thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil veal, salt, white pepper, and mace in water for 3 hours.

  2. Strain the stock and keep it hot.

Make the soup

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan, then mix in flour.

  2. Gradually add ½ pint of strained stock, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Add boiled macaroni and stir until it boils.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in cream, letting it just boil 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Veal
Gives the stock its meaty body and flavour as it simmers for hours.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, lightly bodied base.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and a rounded flavour to the base.
Macaroni
Adds bite and substance so the soup is more than broth.
Rich sweet cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream. Cream can curdle or separate if it is boiled hard for long, so it should be added off the heat and only just brought to a boil. Gentle heat keeps the soup smooth and rich.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mace, flour, butter, 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.

More macaroni soup recipes

Tomato 8Veal 5 See all 191 →

You might also like

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