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Cream of Lettuce Soup

A creamy soup made with lettuce, rice, stock, cream, egg yolk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Illustration of Cream of Lettuce SoupIllustration

Why it works: Lettuce and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,121 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Cook the onion for five minutes in the butter.

  2. Add the lettuce, rice, and stock.

  3. Cook until the rice is soft.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the cream, the slightly beaten yolk of egg, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  2. Remove the outer leaves from the lettuce, using only the tender part for the soup.

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

The picture is an illustration, not a photo of this recipe · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lettuce + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Rice + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,990 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lettuce + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together477 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the main body of the soup and gives its green flavour and bulk.
Rice
Softens as it cooks and thickens the soup through its starch.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Egg yolk
Thickens the soup gently as it heats and adds richness.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour for cooking the onion.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when heated but scrambles if it boils. Stir the beaten yolk in off the heat or over very gentle heat, and keep the soup below a simmer so it stays smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, rice, cream, butter, egg, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, rice, cream, butter, egg, nutmeg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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