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Soup

Modern Cookery

A hearty soup made with lean ham, veal, water, and aromatics simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clear the soup from scum as it begins to boil.

  2. Add 1 oz of salt, onions, celery, carrots, white pepper, and mace.

  3. Let the soup simmer gently for 5 to 6 hours until the meat falls from the bones.

  4. Add the skin of a calf's head, a calf's foot, or an old fowl for extra flavor if desired.

  5. Strain the soup into a clean deep pan and store in a cool place until needed.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Breaks down over long simmering to give body and gelatin to the broth.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Release sweetness and aroma into the broth during the long simmer.
Celery
Contributes savory, aromatic flavor to the broth.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Clear the scum as the soup begins to boil. Skimming foam and impurities that rise early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting. Letting it boil hard or simmer too vigorously would cloud it, so the gentle simmer afterward matters too.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, onion, celery, carrot, mace):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, onion, celery, carrot, mace. 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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