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Westerfield White Soup

A veal-based soup with cream, vermicelli, almonds, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Westerfield White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Break the bone of the veal in one or two places.

  2. Place the veal in a pot with the cold water.

  3. Add the salt, onions, white pepper, mace, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Simmer slowly until the soup reduces by one third.

  5. Strain the soup and let it cool.

  6. Remove the fat and sediment.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the soup in a clean pot.

  2. When boiling, mix in the cream blended with arrowroot, vermicelli, and almonds.

  3. Simmer for one minute.

  4. Serve immediately with a French roll.

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. Arrowroot + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + arrowroottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + arrowroottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together329 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin and flavour into the water, giving the soup body and richness.
Thick cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavour and giving the soup a smooth, velvety texture.
Arrowroot
Starch that thickens the soup when heated, giving it a smooth, light body.
Fresh vermicelli
Adds soft pasta body to the soup, absorbing some liquid as it sits.
Blanched almonds
Adds crunch and a mild nutty flavour in contrast to the smooth soup.

The step that matters

Mix in the cream blended with arrowroot. Arrowroot thickens when heated and can clump if added to hot liquid without being blended smoothly with the cream first. Keep the soup at a gentle boil only briefly after adding it, since prolonged boiling can thin the starch and can split the cream.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper, cream, arrowroot, 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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