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Game Soup

Game Soup is a savory broth made from game meat, veal gravy, ham, green onions, pepper, salt, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Game Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Use leftover white meat from the game and pound it in a mortar.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the backs and legs of the game with 1 quart of veal gravy, a slice of lean ham, 2-3 green onions, pepper, and coarse sea salt in a stewpan.

  2. Stew until the liquid is fully extracted.

  3. Remove the backs and legs from the pot.

  4. Add 1 pint of strong gravy to the pot.

  5. Pound the hard-boiled egg yolks with the pounded meat.

  6. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  7. Add the sieved mixture to the stewpot.

  8. Stir over heat until the desired consistency is reached.

  9. If the soup is too thick, add more veal gravy and season moderately to maintain the game flavor.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pheasant + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Game
Provides the main meat and the rich, distinctive flavor of the soup.
Veal gravy
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavor of the soup.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Pounded into the meat to add richness and help thicken the sieved soup.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the pounded meat and yolks through a fine sieve removes fibers and lumps, giving the soup a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves a coarse, grainy soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, veal, ham, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, veal, ham, pepper, egg. 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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