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Modern Cookery

A hearty soup made with veal, ham, fowls, herbs, and cream, thickened with 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. Prepare stock by boiling veal, ham, water, herbs, carrots, onions, mace, and peppercorns for 5 hours.

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

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

Make the soup

  1. In a small portion of boiling stock, steep 4 oz of thinly sliced stale bread for a few minutes.

  2. Wring out the bread in a clean cloth and add it to the chicken flesh, pounding until blended.

  3. Gradually mix in the stock until smooth, then pass through a sieve.

  4. Heat the mixture in a clean saucepan, stirring in 1 to 1½ pints of boiling cream.

  5. If the soup is not thick enough, mix 1½ oz of arrow-root with cold milk or stock and add it.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  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

Veal
Long simmering gives the stock its body and rich meaty flavour.
Fowls or pullets
Their flesh is pounded into the soup, adding savoury body and substance.
Stale bread
Soaked and pounded, it acts as a thickener that gives the soup body.
Cream
Stirred in at the end, it adds richness, smoothness and a softer texture.
Arrow-root
A starch that thickens the soup further when it is not thick enough.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling cream. Cream can curdle or separate if it is overheated or added to a mixture that is too hot or too acidic. Stirring it in gently, with the mixture heated but not boiling, keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

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