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Swiss White Soup

A light veal and potato soup with sweet milk, butter, and eggs.

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

Make the broth

  1. Cut veal steaks into small pieces and place them in a pot with cold water.

  2. Bring to a gentle simmer until the meat is partly tender.

  3. Add the potato and parsley or celery.

  4. Continue cooking until the meat is fully tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, then add the sweet milk and butter.

  2. Beat the eggs and stir them rapidly into the boiling soup.

  3. 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 steaks
Provides the meat and savory flavor that the soup is built on.
Potato
Releases starch that gives the soup body and a slightly thicker texture.
Sweet milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness that softens the broth.
Eggs
Thicken the soup gently when stirred into hot liquid, giving it a silky body.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounded, smooth mouthfeel and richer flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the soup. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the eggs are added slowly or the soup is not stirred vigorously, they can curdle into lumps instead of thickening the soup smoothly.

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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