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Soupe De Gibier. — Game Soup.

A hearty soup made with beef, partridges, pheasant, veal knuckle, carrots, celery, cloves, fennel, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Soupe De Gibier. — Game Soup.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Put the beef, partridges, pheasant, knuckle of veal, carrots, celery, cloves, fennel, and water into a soup pot.

  2. Bring to a boil, then skim carefully and simmer for 4 hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Pound the meat from 2 old partridges with the crumb of a large French roll soaked in broth.

  2. Mix with enough broth to pass through a coarse sieve.

  3. Strain the soup into this mixture and heat together without boiling, adding salt to taste.

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. Carrot + fenneltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + fenneltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Clove + fenneltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together350 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 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

Gravy beef
Gives the broth its deep, rich meaty flavor as it simmers.
Old partridges
Their long-cooked meat and bones add concentrated game flavor to the broth.
Knuckle of veal
Bones release gelatin, giving the soup body and a silky mouthfeel.
French roll crumb (in the method)
Soaked bread thickens the pounded meat mixture so it binds and passes smoothly through the sieve.

The step that matters

Skimming and simmering without boiling. Skimming foam as the broth comes to a boil removes impurities that would cloud and muddy the flavor. Keeping the soup below a boil while heating the final mixture prevents proteins from toughening and clouding, keeping it clear and smooth.

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pheasant, veal, meat, carrot, celery, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pheasant, veal, meat, carrot, celery, clove. 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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