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A Transparent White Soup

A clear veal broth flavored with mace, almonds, and sugar, served with optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 416 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Transparent White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat from the veal as thin as possible.

  2. Break the bone into pieces.

  3. Place the meat in a large pot and add the bones on top.

  4. Include the sweet herbs, mace, and beaten almonds.

  5. Pour 4 quarts of boiling water over the ingredients and cover tightly.

  6. Let it sit by the fire overnight.

Make the broth

  1. Transfer to a well‑tinned or enamelled saucepan the next day.

  2. Boil gently until reduced by half, skimming off the scum and fat as it rises.

  3. Strain the soup into an earthen pan to settle for 2–3 hours.

  4. Pour the clear liquid into a clean saucepan and add a spoonful of sugar.

Serve

  1. Before serving, add boiled vermicelli, carrot, French beans, or asparagus.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Almond + carrottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together416 recipes

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

  2. Mace + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers slowly in water.
Veal bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the water during long, gentle simmering.
Jordan almonds
Add richness and a subtle nutty note to the broth.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum and fat as it rises. Impurities and fat rising during boiling can cloud the broth and make it greasy. Removing them while it simmers keeps the liquid clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mace, almond, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Carrotthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mace, almond, sugar. 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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