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Soup

Soupe a LA Reine

A creamy French soup made with bread crumbs, rice, celery, fowl meat, egg yolks, almonds, sugar, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Soupe a LA Reine

Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soupe a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Stew the crumbs of the French rolls, rice, and celery in the consommé.

  2. Pound the fowl meat in a mortar until fine.

  3. Add the hard-boiled egg yolks and blanched almonds, mixing well.

  4. If the mixture is too stiff, add a little bread to soften it.

  5. Pass the mixture through a tammy with the remaining bread, sugar, and salt, adding the consommé gradually.

  6. Add the cream in the same manner until fully combined.

Warm and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a soup pot and warm gently in a double boiler, stirring often.

  2. Boil one quart of the soup down to a thicker consistency.

  3. Stir the reduced quart back into the main soup and serve.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

  2. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Rice + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 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

French rolls
Their crumbs thicken the soup and give it body.
Fowl meat
Pounded fine, it provides the main savoury body and richness of the soup.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Their rich, crumbly texture adds smoothness and body to the purée.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smooth, velvety texture.
Celery
Stewed in the consommé, it adds a mild aromatic flavour to the base.

The step that matters

Reducing one quart of the soup. Boiling the soup down concentrates its flavour and thickens it. Reducing too far or too fast can scorch the liquid or make it gluey, so it should be simmered gently and watched.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, meat, egg, almond, sugar, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, meat, egg, almond, sugar, 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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