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Soupe a LA Reine

A creamy French soup made with bread crumbs, rice, celery, consommé, 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, blanched rice, and celery in 1 pint of consommé.

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

  3. Mix the powdered fowl meat with the hard-boiled egg yolks and blanched almonds.

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

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

Finish the soup

  1. Add 1 pint of consommé gradually.

  2. Add 1 pint of cream.

  3. Pour the mixture into a soup pot.

  4. Warm gently in a double boiler, stirring often.

  5. Boil 1 quart of consommé down to a thick soup.

  6. Stir the thick soup into the main soup.

  7. 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

Meat from the breast of fowls
Provides the main body and savoury richness of the soup once pounded fine.
French rolls
Their crumbs thicken the soup and give it body as they soften.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Their fat and fine texture make the purée smooth and rich.
Cream
Adds fat and silkiness, mellowing the soup and giving a smooth mouthfeel.
Consommé
Forms the liquid base that carries and loosens the purée.

The step that matters

Warm gently in a double boiler, stirring often. Cream and egg yolks can curdle or scorch if overheated. Gentle, indirect heat and frequent stirring keep the soup smooth and well emulsified.

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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