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White Soup

A clear broth made from veal and mutton, onions, turnip, and thickened with potato flour and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Chop the veal and mutton into small pieces.

  2. Put them into a pot with water, onions, turnip, and salt.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim thoroughly, and simmer for 3 hours.

  4. Strain the soup and let it cool to remove the fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the soup, stir in the potato flour mixed with milk or cream, and let it thicken.

  2. Season to taste 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.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

French potato flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth, lightly body-rich texture as it heats.
Veal
Releases flavour and gelatin into the broth, giving it body as it simmers.
Mutton
Adds deeper meaty flavour to the broth during the long simmer.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a mellow, creamy texture to the finished white soup.

The step that matters

Skim thoroughly after boiling. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the broth comes to a boil. Removing them early keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting rather than greasy or cloudy.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mutton, onion, potato, flour, milk):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mutton, onion, potato, flour, milk. 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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