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Veal Soup

A clear soup made with veal, water, macaroni, butter, salt, pepper, optional milk or cream, and optional celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine veal and water in a large pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Strain the veal soup.

  3. Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the macaroni

  1. In a separate pot, boil macaroni in enough water to cover it until tender.

  2. Add a little butter to the cooked macaroni.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the macaroni to the strained soup.

  2. Stir in milk or cream and celery if desired.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Veal + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

  5. Milk + celerytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, giving the soup body and savouriness.
Macaroni
Adds starch and bulk, turning the broth into a more substantial soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the cooked macaroni.
Milk or cream
Adds fat and softness, mellowing the broth's flavour and giving a creamier texture.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pepper, milk):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper, 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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