Skip to main content
Main

Chestnut Soup

A hearty soup of chestnuts, bread, veal broth, pheasant, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chestnut Soup

Why it works: Chestnut and pheasant work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Chestnut Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chestnut base

  1. Peel the roasted chestnuts and pound them in a mortar.

  2. Combine the pounded chestnuts, crumbed French rolls, and veal broth in a stewpan and bring to a boil.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine cloth.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the boned and scalded pheasant to the soup and simmer until tender.

  2. Peel the boiled chestnuts and add them to the soup.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks and cream, then season with salt.

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. Chestnut + pheasanttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pheasant + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together112 recipes

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

  3. Veal + pheasanttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Chestnut + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Chestnut + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Roasted chestnuts
Give the soup its main flavour and thick, starchy body once pounded and rubbed through.
French rolls
Thicken the broth as they absorb liquid and break down into the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and thicken it gently when stirred in without boiling.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Pheasant
Adds savoury meat flavour and tender pieces to the soup.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the soup boils after they are added, they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep it hot but below a boil.

“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.

More chestnut soup recipes

Spanish 5 See all 73 →

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesPheasant SoupPheasant Soup25 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes