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Bouillon Maigre De Pois Et De Racines

A light broth made from peas and root vegetables, seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 De Pois Et De Racines

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.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Blanch the carrots, onions, turnips, leeks, and celery in boiling water.

  2. Drain the vegetables and place them in a pot with the dried peas and water.

Simmer the broth

  1. Add salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, cloves, and a little butter.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2.5 hours.

  3. Skim the broth, remove from heat, and let it rest.

  4. Strain the broth through a fine sieve.

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

Dried peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the broth and give it body.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color to the broth as they soften.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and sweetness as they cook down into the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the base of the broth.

The step that matters

Simmering for 2.5 hours. A long, gentle simmer lets the dried peas soften and release starch so the broth thickens. A hard boil can cloud the liquid and break up the vegetables, so keep the heat low and steady.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, turnip, leek, celery, pepper, nutmeg. 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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