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Italian Soup

A creamy veal stock soup with Italian paste, egg yolks, cream, béchamel, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Italian Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine Italian paste and enough veal stock in a stew pan. Boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Beat the egg yolks in a pint of boiled cream, strain through a fine sieve, and mix in the béchamel.

  3. Remove the pan from heat, stir in the egg mixture, return to heat, and stir until it reaches a boil to prevent curdling.

  4. Season with sugar and salt to taste.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

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

  5. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enriches the soup and thickens it as it heats, giving a smooth, rich texture.
Boiled cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the flavour and body of the soup.
Béchamel
Adds body and thickness, helping the soup hold together smoothly.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture back to a boil. Egg yolks can curdle when heated too quickly or left unstirred. Removing the pan from heat before adding them, then returning it and stirring until it just boils, helps the yolks thicken the soup smoothly instead of scrambling.

“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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