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Soup

Bouillon a LA Minute

A simple beef and chicken broth with diced carrots, turnips, onions, leeks, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 a LA Minute

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the beef and chicken.

Make the broth

  1. Place the meat in a pot with salt and add 1.5 liters of water.

  2. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring gently.

  3. Once boiling, add the diced carrots, turnips, onions, leeks, and celery.

  4. Boil for 20 minutes, then strain and serve.

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

Lean beef
Provides rich meaty flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Chicken
Adds savory flavor and body to the broth.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aroma as they cook into the broth.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil gently. Stirring gently while heating keeps the meat from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot. Once the liquid reaches a boil, it should be kept at a steady simmer rather than a hard boil, which keeps the broth clear instead of cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, chicken, carrot, turnip, leek, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, chicken, carrot, turnip, leek, celery. 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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