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Another Macaroni Soup

A veal-based macaroni soup with stock, flour roux, and cream.

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

Another Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

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

  2. Strain the stock and keep it hot in a saucepan.

Make the soup

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour until combined.

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

  3. Add the boiled macaroni and stir until it boils.

  4. Remove from heat and gradually stir in the cream, letting it 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 flavor and body as it simmers for hours.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, lightly bodied base.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flour to form the thickening roux.
Macaroni
Provides the pasta pieces that give the soup its bite and substance.
Rich sweet cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Gradually stirring in the cream, then letting it boil. Adding cold cream all at once or to a very hot base can cause it to curdle or separate; adding it gradually and off the heat helps it blend smoothly before the soup is brought to a boil.

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.

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