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Soup

Modern Cookery

A soup made from veal, carrots, onion, celery, herbs, mace, peppercorns, salt, calf's head, and ham, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Simmer veal with carrots, onion, celery, herbs, mace, peppercorns, and salt until meat falls from bones.

  2. Strain broth and pour it over the veal.

  3. Simmer gently to avoid reducing stock.

  4. Return bones to stock for enrichment.

Prepare the head

  1. Remove brains from calf's head.

  2. Bone the calf's head.

  3. Roll the head with tongue inside and secure the head with twine.

  4. Transfer the head to a deep pan.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain soup into a clean pan.

  2. Let the soup cool and skim off fat.

  3. Pour soup over the head.

  4. Bring the soup to a gentle boil and skim the soup.

  5. Simmer for 1 to 1.25 hours.

  6. Add soup to the pan.

  7. Let cool to prevent dark edges.

Prepare the ham

  1. Remove fat and rind.

  2. Cut ham into quarter-inch slices and dice the ham.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle or neck
Breaks down into gelatin-rich broth that gives the soup body and savoriness.
Calf's head with skin
Supplies gelatin and richness, setting the soup's texture as it cools.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky flavor that seasons the soup.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness to the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and skim the soup. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the broth and clouds it, while gentle simmering keeps the stock clear and avoids over-reducing it. Skimming removes fat and impurities that would otherwise make the soup greasy.

Swap the mace

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

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

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