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Game Soup

A hearty soup made from game backs and legs, veal gravy, ham, green onions, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Game Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the backs and legs of the game with veal gravy, ham, green onions, pepper, and salt in a stewpan.

  2. Stew until the goodness is completely extracted.

  3. Remove the backs and legs, then add a pint of strong gravy.

Finish the soup

  1. Pound the hard-boiled egg yolks with the leftover meat in a mortar and rub through a fine sieve.

  2. Add the mixture to the stew liquid and stir over heat until desired consistency is reached.

  3. If too thick, add more veal gravy and season moderately to maintain the game flavor.

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

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

  2. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  5. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed and sieved into the soup, they thicken it smoothly and add richness.
Veal gravy
Forms the savory liquid base and can be added to thin the soup.
Leftover white meat from game
Pounded into the purée, it gives the soup body and its game flavor.

The step that matters

Rubbing the yolk and meat through a fine sieve. Pounding and sieving breaks the solids into fine particles so the soup thickens smoothly rather than turning grainy or lumpy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper, meat, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, meat, egg. 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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