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White Soups

A clear soup made from veal, ham, mace, onions, celery, almonds, cream, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

White Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Break the bones of the veal.

  2. Stew the veal with ham, mace, onions, celery, salt, and sugar in 1 gallon to 6 quarts of water until the meat is tender and the soup is strong.

  3. Skim the soup.

  4. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  5. If letting it sit overnight, pour the soup into an earthen vessel.

  6. Remove the fat from the soup in the morning.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the pounded almonds to the soup.

  2. Boil the soup for a short time.

  3. Strain the soup again.

  4. Mix the cream and egg yolk in a tureen.

  5. Pour the hot soup over the cream and egg yolk mixture carefully to avoid curdling.

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 + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

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

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

  5. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 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
Its bones and meat give the soup body and a rich, savoury flavour as it stews.
Sweet almonds
Pounded almonds thicken the soup slightly and add a smooth, nutty body.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a silky, mellow texture to the finished soup.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the cream when combined with the hot soup.
Ham
Lends a salty, smoky depth of flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Pour the hot soup over the cream and egg yolk mixture carefully. Egg yolk thickens when heated, but if the soup is poured in too quickly or too hot, the yolk can scramble and curdle. Pouring slowly while stirring gently tempers the eggs so the soup stays smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, celery, sugar, meat, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, celery, sugar, meat, 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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