Skip to main content
Main

Potage De Macaroni a LA Corinne

A French soup of macaroni with carrots, turnips, peas, butter, nutmeg, and Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potage De Macaroni a LA Corinne

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

  1. Prepare the consommé as usual.

  2. Make a macédoine with small carrots, turnips, and peas.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Blanch the macaroni, then simmer it for 30 minutes with half the reduced consommé, butter, and nutmeg.

Assemble and finish

  1. Layer the bottom of a soup tureen with the macaroni.

  2. Sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese on top.

  3. Add a layer of macédoine.

  4. Add a layer of Parmesan cheese and macédoine.

  5. Finish the potage according to customary methods.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Turnip + peastop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 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

Macaroni
Forms the body of the soup, staying firm while it simmers and absorbing flavour from the consommé.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty depth and melts slightly into the layers for richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavour of the consommé and macaroni.
Consommé
Serves as the clear, savoury liquid that cooks the macaroni and forms the soup base.
Peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture to the macédoine layers.

The step that matters

Simmering the macaroni. Blanching first removes raw starch and surface residue, and a gentle 30-minute simmer lets the pasta soften fully without breaking apart or clouding the consommé.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, peas, butter, parmesan cheese):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, peas, butter, parmesan cheese. 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipes