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An Excellent White Soup

A clear white soup made with mutton, veal, and bones, thickened with almonds and stale bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

An Excellent White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine mutton, veal, mutton shank bones, gammon, sweet herbs, lemon peel, onions, mace, white pepper, and water in a large pot.

  2. Boil until the meat falls apart.

  3. The next day, remove the fat and clear the jelly from the sediment.

Make the thickening

  1. Blanch the almonds in a saucepan.

  2. Grind the blanched almonds into a paste with the water.

  3. Mince the veal or chicken and mix it with the stale bread.

  4. Combine the veal–bread mixture with the cream, lemon peel, and powdered mace.

  5. Boil the mixture for a few minutes.

  6. Add a pint of the soup to the thickening.

  7. Strain the mixture.

  8. Pulp the strained mixture through a coarse sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the thickening to the soup.

  2. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + almondtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Gives the stock its rich meaty flavour as it cooks down to jelly.
Sweet almonds
Ground into a paste, they add body and a mild, creamy richness to the soup.
Stale white bread
Soaks up liquid and helps bind the minced meat into a smooth thickening.
Thick cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished soup a smooth, velvety texture.
Veal or chicken
Minced and blended into the thickening to add body and meaty flavour.

The step that matters

Pulp the strained mixture through a coarse sieve. Forcing the thickening through the sieve breaks up lumps and fibres, so it blends smoothly into the soup instead of leaving grainy texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, veal, lemon, onion, mace, almond, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, veal, lemon, onion, mace, almond, bread. 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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