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White Soup

A clear beef broth with vegetables, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the brisket in water.

  2. Add the chopped vegetables and boil rapidly.

  3. Skim the surface carefully.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours, adding the mace and saffron with the vegetables.

Finish and serve

  1. In a soup tureen, whisk the eggs with nutmeg and lemon juice.

  2. Pour the soup over the egg mixture.

  3. Season to taste.

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

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

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket
Gives the broth its body and meaty flavour as it simmers for two hours.
Eggs
Whisked into the tureen, they thicken the soup slightly and give it a silky texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth and balances the egg.
Carrot
Contributes sweetness and aromatic flavour to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Pouring the soup over the egg mixture. Eggs thicken when heated but scramble if they get too hot too fast. Pouring the hot soup slowly while whisking gently tempers the eggs, giving a smooth, silky result rather than curdled bits.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, parsley, lemon, saffron, onion, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, parsley, lemon, saffron, onion, clove. 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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