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Westebfield White Soup

A veal bone broth with cream, vermicelli, almonds, and spices, served with a French roll.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Westebfield White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Break the bone of the veal knuckle in one or two places and place it in a pot with 3 quarts of cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum, then add salt, onions, white pepper, mace, and cayenne.

  3. Simmer gently until the soup reduces by one third, then strain and let cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooled, remove the fat and sediment, then reheat in a clean pot.

  2. When boiling, mix in the cream blended with arrowroot, vermicelli, and almonds.

  3. Simmer for one minute and serve immediately with a French roll.

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. Arrowroot + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + arrowroottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + arrowroottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together329 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + almondtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 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

Veal knuckle
Gives the soup its body and meaty flavour as it simmers into stock.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream mixture so the soup becomes lightly body-rich without clouding.
Vermicelli
Adds soft starchy strands that give the soup substance and bite.
Blanched almonds
Contribute a mild nutty flavour and a bit of texture in the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and arrowroot mixture to the boiling soup. Arrowroot thickens when heated but can clump if added to liquid without being blended smoothly with the cream first. Adding it to a gentle boil and simmering only briefly keeps the soup smooth and prevents the cream from curdling or the starch from breaking down.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, pepper, cream, arrowroot, almond):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper, cream, arrowroot, almond. 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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