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Bouillon Maigre

A clear vegetable broth made from carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, cloves, and water, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the carrots, turnips, celery, and leeks in water for a few moments.

  2. Drain the vegetables.

  3. Place the drained vegetables in cold water briefly.

  4. Transfer the vegetables to 3 quarts of water.

Make the broth

  1. Add cloves to the water.

  2. Boil gently for 3 hours.

  3. Add salt to taste.

  4. Strain the broth through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Heat the strained broth again.

  2. Serve the clear vegetable broth.

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
Release sweetness and flavor into the broth as they simmer.
Turnips
Contribute mild, earthy flavor to the broth during long simmering.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory depth to the broth.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and savory sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 3 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, because vigorous boiling breaks up vegetable particles and clouds the liquid. Steady low heat also extracts flavor slowly and evenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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