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White Soup

A creamy veal and ham soup thickened with almonds and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Break the bones of the veal and ham, then stew them gently with water until the meat is tender and the soup is strong.

  2. Skim the soup and strain it through a fine sieve.

  3. Let the strained soup sit overnight if possible, then remove the fat in the morning.

Thicken and finish

  1. Add the pounded almonds to the strained soup and boil for a short time.

  2. Strain the soup again.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the cream and egg yolk.

  4. Pour the hot soup over the cream and egg yolk mixture to prevent curdling.

  5. Alternatively, thicken the soup by blending blanched almonds with a little water, minced veal or chicken, and stale white bread.

  6. Add this mixture to a pint of thick cream, lemon peel, and mace.

  7. Boil for a few minutes, then add to the soup and boil for an additional 30 minutes.

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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Nutmeg + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  5. Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Pounded into the soup to give body, a nutty flavor and a creamy texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the cream when gently combined with the hot soup.
Veal
Long gentle stewing extracts gelatin and flavor, giving the soup its body.

The step that matters

Pour the hot soup over the cream and egg yolk mixture. Adding hot soup slowly to the yolk and cream tempers the eggs so they warm gradually instead of scrambling and curdling in the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, nutmeg, onion, celery, sugar, almond):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, nutmeg, onion, celery, sugar, almond. 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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