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Sovpe 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 ↓

Sovpe De Gibier. — Game Soup.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

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

  2. Bring to a boil and skim the surface.

  3. Reduce to a simmer for 4 hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Pound the meat from 2 cold 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 the mixture.

  4. Serve without boiling; add 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
Provides rich meaty flavour and body to the broth as it simmers.
Knuckle of veal
Adds gelatin from bones and connective tissue, giving the broth body and mouthfeel.
Partridges
Contribute gamey flavour to the broth and, pounded, thicken the soup.
Pheasant
Adds deeper gamey flavour to the broth during the long simmer.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Serve without boiling. Once the pounded meat and bread are strained in, boiling can cloud the soup and curdle the fine solids. Keeping it hot but below a boil preserves a clear, smooth texture.

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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