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White Soup

A veal stock soup with rice, onion, carrot, cloves, peppercorns, mace, butter, cornstarch, and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the fowl or knuckle of veal in 3 quarts of cold water until tender.

  2. Remove the meat.

  3. Strain the liquid.

  4. Let it cool to remove the fat.

  5. Boil the rice in a little water until soft.

  6. Add the stock.

  7. Add the chopped onion, carrot, cloves, peppercorns, and mace.

  8. Boil for 15 minutes.

  9. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate pan, cook the butter and cornstarch together.

  2. Slowly pour in the boiling milk or cream, stirring constantly.

  3. Season with salt, celery salt, and pepper.

  4. Add to the stock.

  5. Cook for a few minutes.

  6. Strain into a tureen.

  7. Optionally add the yolk of a hard-boiled egg or the beaten eggs.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal or fowl
Gives the stock its meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Rice
Softens and thickens the soup slightly as it cooks.
Butter and cornstarch
Form a roux with the milk or cream that thickens the soup.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the soup.
Eggs
Optional addition that enriches the soup's texture and colour.

The step that matters

Adding the milk or cream to the butter and cornstarch. Pouring the liquid in slowly while stirring constantly keeps the starch dispersed. Adding it all at once can cause lumps that are hard to smooth out.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, rice, onion, carrot, clove, butter, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, onion, carrot, clove, butter, milk. 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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