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Spring Vegetable Soup

A light vegetable soup made with peas, lettuce, onion, parsley, butter, egg yolks, water, and soup stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Spring Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. Combine the lettuces, onion, parsley, butter, and water in a stewpan.

  2. Simmer until tender.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and pepper.

  4. Strain off the vegetables.

Make the soup

  1. Combine two-thirds of the liquid with the soup stock.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the remaining third of the liquid.

  3. Heat gently.

  4. Add the egg mixture and vegetables to the strained soup just before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup and add richness as they gently set with the warm liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounded, silky mouthfeel and carries flavour from the vegetables.
Lettuces
Provide the bulk of the soup's body and a mild, sweet, fresh green flavour.
Onion
Releases savoury sweetness and aroma as it simmers with the other vegetables.
Parsley
Contributes a fresh, herbal aroma to the finished soup.
Soup stock
Forms the main savoury liquid base that the other ingredients are combined into.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture. Egg yolks curdle and turn grainy if they overheat. Keep the soup warm but not boiling, and add the egg mixture just before serving so it thickens smoothly without scrambling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, lettuce, parsley, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, parsley, butter, egg, 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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