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Soup A@LA Reine

A rich soup of ham, fowls, veal, herbs, onions, mace, almonds, bread crumbs, and cream, seasoned with salt and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Soup A@LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut a few slices of lean ham and cover the bottom of a 4‑quart stewpan.

  2. Cut up 2 fowls and add them to the stewpan with a few slices of veal, thyme, parsley, 6 onions, blades of mace, and ½ pint of water.

  3. Cook on a slow stove for 1 hour, ensuring it does not catch at the bottom.

  4. After 1 hour, fill the stewpan with your best stock and let it boil gently for 1 hour.

Make the soup

  1. Remove the fowls, pull the meat from the bones, and place it in a mortar with 2 ounces of sweet almonds.

  2. Pound the meat and almonds until fine enough to pass through a tammy.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a small soup pot.

  4. Add 2 quarts of the stock used for boiling the fowls and the crumb of 3 French rolls.

  5. Boil for 1 hour.

  6. Rub the soup through a tammy.

  7. Add 1 pint of boiled cream to the soup pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the soup pot in a stewpan of hot water to keep warm.

  2. Before serving, taste the soup and adjust with salt or a small bit of sugar if needed.

  3. Cut the crusts of the rolls into round pieces the size of a shilling.

  4. Place the crust pieces in the tureen before adding the soup.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowls
Give the stock its savoury, meaty flavour and body.
Sweet almonds
Add body and a nutty richness to the pounded meat.
French rolls
Their crumb soaks up liquid and thickens the soup into a smooth body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they cook slowly into the stock.

The step that matters

Cooking slowly without catching on the bottom. Meat and proteins in a thin liquid scorch easily on the base of the pan, and scorched flavour then spreads through the whole stock. A low, gentle heat and occasional attention keep the soup clean and clear-tasting.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, thyme, parsley, onion, almond, cream):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, thyme, parsley, onion, almond, 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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