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Soup a LA-Reine

A savory soup made with ham, veal, fowl, mace, onions, celery, turnips, carrot, herbs, water, cream, roll crumbs, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Soup a LA-Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the ham at the bottom of a stew-pan and add the veal and fowl pieces.

  2. Include the mace, onions, celery, turnips, carrot, and sweet herbs.

  3. Pour in ½ pint of water and cover tightly.

  4. Simmer gently for 30 minutes, ensuring it doesn't burn.

  5. Add boiling water and stew until all flavors are extracted.

  6. Strain into a clean pan and let it settle for 30 minutes.

  7. Skim off the fat and pour the clear liquid into another pan.

Prepare the thickening

  1. Soak the roll crumbs in ½ pint of cream.

  2. Blanch and finely beat the almonds, adding a little cream as needed.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean ham
Gives the stock savoury, meaty flavour as it simmers.
Veal knuckle
Adds body and gelatin to the stock for a richer mouthfeel.
Old fowl
Contributes deep poultry flavour to the stock.
Sweet herbs
Add aromatic flavour to the stock.
Penny roll crumbs
Soaked in cream, they thicken the soup and give it body.
Almonds
Ground into a paste, they add richness, body and a delicate nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and skim the stock. Boiling rather than gently simmering can cloud the stock and make fat emulsify into it. Gentle heat plus careful skimming keeps the liquid clear and the flavour clean.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, onion, celery, turnip, carrot, 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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