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A Bicheb White Soup

A creamy white soup made with almonds, roasted chicken or partridges, bread, veal stock, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,243 recipes. Both carry 3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

A Bicheb White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Remove the skins from the almonds.

  2. Blend the almonds with the chicken or partridge breasts and soaked bread until smooth.

Make the soup

  1. Gradually add boiling veal stock to the mixture, stirring continuously.

  2. Strain the soup through a fine sieve and return it to the heat.

  3. Stir in the thick cream and heat until just boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve with a French roll in the tureen.

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. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  2. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Bread + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

  5. Almond + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour, thickening the soup when blended.
Chicken or partridge breasts
Add savoury meat flavour and body to the blended soup.
White bread
Soaked in broth, it helps thicken and smooth the blended soup.
Veal stock
Forms the liquid base, adding rich savoury depth.
Thick cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smooth, silky texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the thick cream and heat until just boiling. Cream can curdle or separate if it is boiled hard or for too long. Heating it only until just boiling keeps the soup smooth and rich.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, chicken, bread, veal, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, chicken, bread, veal, 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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