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A thickened soup made from veal and ham stock, chicken, bread, cream, and arrow-root.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil veal, ham, herbs, carrots, onions, and peppercorns in water for 5 hours to prepare stock.

  2. Add fowls or pullets and cook for 1 to 1½ hours.

  3. Strain the stock and let it cool, skimming off any fat.

Make the soup

  1. Steep the bread in a small portion of boiling stock for a few minutes, then drain it.

  2. Pound the bread with the chicken until well blended.

  3. Gradually mix in the stock until smooth.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a clean stewpan.

  5. Stir in boiling cream and add arrow-root mixed with cold milk or stock if needed for thickness.

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 + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 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

Bread
Soaked and pounded, it thickens the soup and gives it a smooth body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished soup.
Arrow-root
Starch that thickens the soup if it needs more body.
Fowls or pullets
Provide the chicken flavour and meat that is pounded into the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the boiling cream. Adding the cream to a boiling soup can make it curdle or separate, so it is best added to a hot but not boiling base and stirred in gently.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, bread, cream, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, bread, cream, milk. 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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