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Westerfield White Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 485 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Westerfield White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Break the bone of a knuckle of veal in one or two places and place it in a pot with 3 quarts of cold water.

  2. Once the scum has cleared, add 1½ ounces of coarse sea salt, 1 mild onion, 20 grains of white pepper, 2 or 3 blades of mace, and a little cayenne pepper.

  3. Simmer slowly until the soup reduces by one-third, then strain and let it cool.

  4. Once cooled, remove the fat and sediment, then reheat in a clean pot.

Finish and serve

  1. When boiling, mix in 1 pint of thick cream blended with 1 ounce of cornstarch, 2 ounces of previously boiled and drained vermicelli, and 1½ ounces of blanched and sliced almonds.

  2. Simmer for 1 minute and 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. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

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

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Onion + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,205 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides gelatin and meaty flavour as the body of the stock.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup so it is lightly body-rich rather than watery.
Vermicelli
Adds soft pasta texture and bulk to the finished soup.
Almonds
Adds a nutty flavour and a slight crunch in the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and cornstarch mixture. Cornstarch thickens only when boiled, so the cream must be blended smoothly first to avoid lumps; then a brief simmer, not a long boil, keeps the cream from splitting while the starch sets.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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