Koninginnesoep (Queen's Cream Soup)

Name: Koninginnesoep (Queen's Cream Soup)
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Dutch
Ingredients: 1 litre good chicken stock; 50 g butter; 50 g plain flour; 200 g cooked chicken; 100 g white mushrooms; 2 egg yolks; 150 ml double cream; 1 tbsp dry sherry; 0.25 tsp grated nutmeg; 1 tbsp chervil or parsley; to taste salt, white pepper and lemon

IVSoups

Prep: 20 min
Cook: 40 min
Serves: 4
Level: Intermediate

Koninginnesoep — literally "queen's soup" — is the Dutch entry in a grand European tradition of refined cream-of-chicken soups, the kind that once opened a formal dinner. Where kippensoep is the homely broth you make for the sick, this is its courtly cousin: smooth, pale, enriched with egg yolk and cream, and finished with a whisper of sherry. It is a soup that dresses up.

A soup of the polite table

The name borrows from the French potage à la reine, and the dish belongs to the eighteenth-century turn toward finer, more European cooking, when printed Dutch cookbooks first codified the manners of the well-set table and coffee, tea and sugar were remaking domestic life. This was never peasant food. It was the soup of guests and Sundays, a display of a cook's command of the velouté and the delicate liaison of yolk and cream.

The mark of a good koninginnesoep is its texture: it should coat the spoon like warm silk.

The liaison is everything

The technique that defines it is the liaison — egg yolks beaten with cream and stirred in at the very end to thicken and gloss the soup. It is also the step most likely to go wrong. The yolks must be tempered with a little hot soup first, and the pot must never boil again, or the eggs seize into curds. Done with care, they give a body and sheen no amount of flour could imitate.

Keep the chicken finely and neatly diced, season with white pepper and a few drops of lemon to cut the richness, and serve it the moment it is ready.

From the kitchen

“Temper the egg yolks with a little hot soup before adding them, and never boil afterwards — this liaison thickens only just below a simmer.”

Ingredients

Serves 4

The base

1 litregood chicken stock — hot
50 gbutter
50 gplain flour
200 gcooked chicken — poached breast, finely diced
100 gwhite mushrooms — sliced, optional

The enrichment

2egg yolks
150 mldouble cream
1 tbspdry sherry — optional
0.25 tspgrated nutmeg

To finish

1 tbspchervil or parsley — chopped
to tastesalt, white pepper and lemon

Method

1
Build a velouté
Melt the butter, stir in the flour, and cook gently two minutes to a blond roux without colour. Whisk in the hot chicken stock a ladle at a time until perfectly smooth, then simmer 10 minutes to cook out the flour and thicken to a light cream.
2
Add the garnish
If using mushrooms, sweat them separately in a little butter, then add them and the finely diced chicken to the velouté. Warm through gently; keeping the chicken in small, neat pieces is part of the soup's genteel character.
3
Temper the liaison
Whisk the egg yolks with the cream in a bowl. Ladle in a little of the hot soup, whisking, to warm the yolks slowly — this tempering stops them scrambling when they meet the heat of the pot.
4
Finish off the heat
Take the pan off the heat and stir the tempered cream back in. Do not let it boil again; the yolks thicken and gloss the soup at just below a simmer, and boiling would curdle them into threads.
5
Season and serve
Add the sherry and nutmeg, then season carefully with salt, white pepper and a few drops of lemon to sharpen the richness. Ladle into warmed bowls and scatter with chervil. Serve at once.

In the kitchen

The tools that make this recipe easier.

WorthwhileFish / filleting knife ↗
Thin flexible blade for herring, mackerel, and eel.

With the soup

A bowl of snert is a meal — but the trimmings make it Dutch.

Roggebrood met spek — rye bread with a slab of bacon
Katenspek — smoked cured bacon on the side
Mustard — a dab of coarse mustard on the rye

How a Dutch meal is built →

Questions from the kitchen

Why is it called the queen's soup?+

Koninginnesoep is the Dutch name for a classic cream of chicken in the French 'reine' style, a refined soup of the well-set table. The name marks its status as a soup for guests and occasions rather than everyday.

What does the egg yolk do?+

The yolks and cream form a liaison — an old enrichment that thickens the soup and gives it a glossy, velvety body no roux alone can match. It must be tempered and never boiled, or it curdles.

Can I leave out the sherry?+

Yes, it is a grace note rather than a necessity. A dry sherry or Madeira adds a nutty depth in the classic manner, but the soup is complete and elegant without it.