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Soup

Julienne Soup

A clear vegetable soup made with julienned carrots, turnips, celery, onions, leeks, butter, stock, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Julienne Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash and dry the vegetables.

  2. Cut them into thin shreds, no longer than 1 inch.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the vegetable shreds and stir until slightly browned.

  3. Pour in the clear stock and simmer gently for 1 hour until the vegetables are tender.

  4. Skim off any scum and grease.

  5. Add salt and pepper 30 minutes 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. 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 bulk, sweetness and colour as they soften in the stock.
Turnips
Add body and a mild, slightly sharp flavour to the broth.
Celery heart
Adds aromatic savoury flavour that deepens the soup.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and savoury depth in the broth.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and soft, tender texture.
Butter
Carries flavour and browns the vegetable shreds for richer taste.

The step that matters

Browning the vegetable shreds in butter. Stirring over low heat until only slightly browned develops sweet, savoury flavour through gentle caramelisation. Burning turns the butter and vegetables bitter and dark, which then taints the whole stock.

Swap the onion

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

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

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