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Swiss White Soup

A veal and potato soup with milk, butter, and eggs, seasoned with parsley, celery, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Swiss White Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Swiss White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place veal pieces in a pot with cold water and bring to a gentle simmer.

  2. Cook until the meat is partly tender, then add the potato and parsley or celery.

  3. Once the meat is fully cooked, season with salt and pepper.

  4. Stir in the sweet milk and butter.

  5. Beat the eggs and stir them in rapidly while the soup is boiling.

  6. Strain the soup to remove solids and serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat flavor and body as it cooks into the broth.
Potato
Adds starch that gives the soup a slightly thicker, fuller body.
Eggs
Thicken the soup as they set in the hot liquid, giving it a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Sweet milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the broth's flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring in the eggs. Beaten eggs added to a boiling soup can scramble into small curds instead of thickening smoothly. Stirring rapidly disperses the egg so it sets evenly as a silky liquid.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, pepper, milk, butter, egg):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, pepper, milk, butter, egg. 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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