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Soup

P Potage a LA Reine

A veal and fowl soup thickened with bread, cream, and arrow‑root, seasoned with herbs, mace, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

P Potage a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Stew the veal, ham, herbs, carrots, onions, mace, and peppercorns in 4 quarts of water until reduced to about 5 pints.

  2. Strain the broth.

  3. Let the broth cool to remove the fat.

  4. Clean the fowls, removing any dark spongy substance.

  5. Add the cleaned fowls to the veal broth.

  6. Boil gently for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  7. Remove the fowls from the broth.

Make the paste

  1. Mince the white flesh of the fowls.

  2. Pound the minced flesh into a fine paste.

  3. Cover the paste until needed.

  4. Return the fowl bodies to the stock.

  5. Simmer for 1.5 hours.

  6. Season the soup with salt and cayenne.

  7. Strain the soup.

  8. Let the soup cool, skimming off the fat.

  9. Soak the bread in a small portion of the hot stock.

  10. Drain the bread and add it to the chicken paste.

  11. Mix in the stock gradually until the mixture is smooth.

  12. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the mixture in a clean pot.

  2. Stir in 1 to 1½ pints of boiling cream.

  3. Mix arrow‑root with cold milk or stock.

  4. Add the mixture to the soup.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  5. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal scrag or knuckle
Gives the broth its body and rich meaty flavour.
Fowls
Their flesh, pounded into a paste, gives the soup its smooth, thick body and flavour.
Light stale bread
Soaked and blended in, it helps thicken the soup and give it a smooth texture.
Boiling cream
Adds richness, fat and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Arrow-root
A starch that thickens the soup as it heats, giving a smooth, glossy consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the arrow-root mixture to the soup. Starch must be mixed into cold liquid first so it disperses evenly; added directly to hot soup it clumps. Once the soup is heated, the starch swells and thickens it.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, onion, pepper, bread, cream):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, onion, pepper, bread, 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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