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Black Soup

A veal broth with carrots, onions, potatoes, parsley, summer savory, browned flour, and Madeira wine, finished with egg yolk, force‑meat ball, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Black Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut up the veal shank and place it in a pot with the water, carrots, onion, potatoes, salt, and pepper.

  2. Boil slowly for 4 hours, skimming constantly.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the broth into a clean pot and add the parsley, summer savory, and browned flour.

  2. Boil for 1 hour, then remove the parsley and summer savory.

  3. Just before serving, heat the Madeira wine and stir it into the soup.

  4. For each serving, add 1 yolk of hard-boiled egg, 1 force-meat ball, and 1 thin slice of lemon.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal shank
Gives the broth its meaty body and rich flavor as it simmers.
Browned flour
Thickens the broth and adds a toasty, deeper color and flavor.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth when stirred in just before serving.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and add body and starch to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth during the 4-hour boil. Constant skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that would otherwise cloud the broth and give it a muddy, off taste.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, onion, parsley, summer savory, flour, madeira wine):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, onion, parsley, summer savory, flour, madeira wine. 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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