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Soup

Velvet Soup

A creamy soup made with stock, cream, egg yolks, salt, and pepper, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Velvet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring the stock to a boil in a pot.

  2. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl and mix with ½ cup of cream.

  3. Pour the boiling stock over the egg yolk mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Reheat the mixture gently without boiling.

  5. Serve immediately in bouillon cups.

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. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and give it a smooth, rich texture as they gently set with heat.
Cream
Adds richness and a velvety mouthfeel, and helps keep the yolks from scrambling.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savory flavor.

The step that matters

Reheat the mixture gently without boiling. Egg yolks begin to set around 160°F and scramble if boiled, leaving the soup grainy instead of smooth and velvety.

“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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