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Soup

Bouillon Aux Oeufs

A beef broth with eggs, parsley, chives, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bouillon Aux Oeufs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Prepare a stock by placing 1 lb of beef and bones in 4 quarts of water.

  2. Add a little coarse sea salt and bring to a gentle boil, skimming off the scum.

  3. Add chopped vegetables, peppercorns, and bay leaves, then cook gently for 2 to 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. In a soup tureen, beat 1-2 eggs and mix in parsley and chives.

  2. Pour in some strained stock, season with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg, and serve.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Gives the stock its meaty flavour and body as it simmers slowly.
Eggs
Beaten into the hot stock, they thicken the broth and add richness.
Leeks
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the stock as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and sweetness to the stock during long simmering.

The step that matters

Skimming the stock as it comes to a boil. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise to the surface; removing it early keeps the stock clear and free of bitter, muddy flavours.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, leek, egg, parsley, chive):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, leek, egg, parsley, chive. 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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