Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Soupe Blanche
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Slice the celery thinly and stew in butter until tender.
Add the celery to stock with the young fowl, salt, and spices.
Cook and finish
Cook until the fowl is well done.
Before serving, stir in the yolks of two eggs.
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.
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Celery + buttertop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,049 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Celery + eggtop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,334 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Celery
- Adds aromatic flavor and, once stewed in butter, a soft texture to the soup.
- Butter
- Carries the celery's flavor and adds richness to the soup.
- Young fowl
- Provides the meat and savory flavor the soup is built around.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken and enrich the soup, giving it a smoother, creamier body.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the soup boils after they go in, the proteins tighten and curdle into small flecks, so the yolks should be stirred in off the boil.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg):
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Capersfits better
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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