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Veal Soup

A clear soup made from veal, celery, and a creamy egg yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,863 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the veal in a pot with 2 quarts of cold water.

  2. Bring to a slow boil and skim off any foam.

  3. When nearly done, add salt and the celery stalks.

Finish and serve

  1. Finish cooking, then blend the cream with cornstarch and the egg yolk.

  2. Stir the cream mixture into the soup, adding a little hot soup to temper it.

  3. Remove the celery stalks and 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. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Veal + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle or shank
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream mixture so the soup becomes lightly body-rich.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps thicken the cream when gently heated.

The step that matters

Stir the cream mixture into the soup. Adding the cream mixture straight into hot soup can curdle the egg yolk. Tempering it first with a little hot soup gradually warms the yolk so it blends in smoothly and thickens evenly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, 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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