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A Richer White Soup

A creamy white soup made with almonds, chicken, veal stock, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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A Richer White Soup

Why it works: Chicken and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,243 recipes. Both carry 3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

A Richer White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Pound the almonds very fine.

  2. Add the roasted chicken or partridge breasts and the soaked bread to the almonds, and blend into a smooth paste.

  3. Gradually pour in the boiling veal stock, stirring continuously.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a fine sieve and return it to the heat.

  2. Add the thick cream and heat until just boiling.

  3. Serve immediately with a French roll in the tureen.

  4. For a thicker soup without cream, increase the almonds to 8 or 10 ounces and use a pint of boiling stock.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  2. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

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

  4. Bread + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

  5. Almond + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Pounded to a paste, they give the soup its body and nutty flavour.
Roasted chicken or partridge breasts
Add meaty flavour and substance to the blended base.
White bread
Soaked and squeezed, it helps bind the paste and thicken the soup smoothly.
Veal stock
Forms the liquid base, carrying the flavour of the whole soup.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Blending the paste smooth before adding stock. Almonds and bread must be ground fine and blended into a smooth paste first. Lumps left at this stage stay in the soup, and pouring in boiling stock too quickly can cause the paste to clump instead of dispersing evenly.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, chicken, bread, veal, 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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