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White Soup

A clear veal and ham soup thickened with almonds, sweet cream, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut the knuckle of veal into 3-4 pieces and place in a pot.

  2. Add the ham, onions, thyme, cloves, and mace.

  3. Cover with cold water and cook until the meat separates from the bone.

  4. Remove from heat and strain through a sieve.

  5. When cool, skim off the fat from the top.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the pounded almonds to the stock and bring to a slow boil.

  2. Thirty minutes before serving, thicken with sweet cream and a beaten egg.

  3. Keep warm but do not boil until ready to serve.

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 + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Thyme + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Gives the stock its body and rich meaty flavour as it cooks.
Pounded blanched almonds
Thicken the soup and give it a creamy, nutty body.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the finished soup.
Egg
Thickens the soup gently when stirred in as it heats.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savoury depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Thickening with egg and cream. Once the beaten egg is stirred in, the soup must stay below a boil. High heat scrambles the egg proteins, leaving the soup grainy instead of smooth and thickened.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, thyme, clove, mace, cream):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, thyme, clove, mace, cream. 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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