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White Soup

A veal broth thickened with cream and egg yolks, served with blanched almonds and vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,769 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine veal, water, salt, onions, peppercorns, and mace in a large pot.

  2. Simmer for 5 hours or more.

  3. Strain the broth.

  4. Return the strained broth to the pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Add cream.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil for a few minutes.

  3. Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl and mix them with half a pint of the boiling soup.

  4. Remove the soup from the heat.

  5. Stir the egg mixture into the soup.

  6. Serve immediately with blanched almonds and vermicelli.

  7. Offer grated Parmesan cheese on the side.

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. Onion + almondtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

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

  3. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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
Gives the broth its body and rich meaty flavor during long simmering.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the broth.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently and add richness when stirred in off the heat.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the soup off the heat. Egg yolks scramble if they meet very hot liquid directly. Tempering them with hot soup first and then adding them off the heat lets them thicken smoothly without curdling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, cream, almond, 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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