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Bouillon Maigre D’essence De Plantes Potagères

A light vegetable broth made with carrots, turnips, leeks, onions, celery, and aromatics, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bouillon Maigre D’essence De Plantes Potagères

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the broth

  1. Sauté the sliced carrots and turnips in butter over medium heat, stirring occasionally until lightly browned.

  2. Add the leeks, onions, and celery, and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

  3. Pour in the boiling water, add the studded onion, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Simmer gently for 4 hours, skimming and degreasing the broth as needed.

Finish

  1. Strain the broth through a fine sieve, ensuring it is well-seasoned.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during simmering.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly peppery flavour and savoury depth to the broth.
Butter
Carries flavour and promotes light browning of the vegetables at the start.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and savoury flavour to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury flavour that underpins the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming and degreasing during the 4-hour simmer. Fat and fine foam rise to the surface during long simmering. Removing them keeps the broth clear and prevents a greasy mouthfeel, while a gentle simmer avoids clouding it through vigorous boiling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, butter, leek, celery, clove, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, butter, leek, celery, clove, pepper. 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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