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Westerfield White Soup

A veal-based white soup with cream, vermicelli, and almonds, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Westerfield White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Break the bone of the veal knuckle in one or two places and place it in a pot with the cold water.

  2. Once the scum has cleared, add the salt, onion, white pepper, mace, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Simmer slowly until the soup reduces by one-third, then strain and let it cool.

  4. Remove the fat and sediment, then reheat the soup in a clean pot.

Finish and serve

  1. When boiling, mix in the cream blended with arrowroot, the cooked vermicelli, and the almond strips.

  2. Simmer for one minute and serve immediately with a French roll.

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Corn + arrowroottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Onion + arrowroottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Gives the stock its body and rich meaty flavour as it simmers down.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream mixture so the soup becomes lightly body-rich without clouding.
Vermicelli
Adds substance and a tender bite to the soup.
Almonds
Contribute a delicate nutty flavour and a crisp texture against the soft pasta.

The step that matters

Mix in the cream blended with arrowroot while boiling. Arrowroot thickens best when it is fully dispersed in cold cream first and then heated. Adding it to a soup that is not boiling, or stirring in lumps, leaves a grainy or thin result. Keep the soup at a boil only briefly afterward, since prolonged boiling can thin the starch and split the cream.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, corn, mace, pepper, cream, arrowroot):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, corn, mace, pepper, cream, arrowroot. 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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