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Game Soup

A soup made from cold bird meat, turnips, broth, cream, egg yolks, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Game Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and broth

  1. Remove the meat from the breasts of cold birds and pound it in a mortar.

  2. Break the legs and bones, then boil them in broth for 1 hour.

  3. Boil and mash 6 turnips, then strain them through a cloth with the pounded meat.

  4. Strain the broth and add it gradually to the turnip mixture.

Finish the soup

  1. Place the soup kettle near the fire without boiling.

  2. Mix 6 egg yolks with ½ pint of cream and strain through a sieve.

  3. As the broth heats, stir in the egg mixture without letting it boil to avoid curdling.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Winter savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and give it a smooth, rich texture when heated gently.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, softening the soup's body and flavor.
Turnips
Boiled and mashed, they give body and bulk to the soup.
Birds' meat
Pounded and strained in, it adds savoury flavor and body to the soup.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg mixture without boiling. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the soup boils, the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving the soup grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, cream, egg, lemon, thyme, winter savory, marjoram):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cream, egg, lemon, thyme, winter savory, marjoram. 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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