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Lettuce Soup

A soup made from lettuce, onion, stock, rice or semolina, milk, and cream, served with fried croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Lettuce Soup

Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lettuce Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Wash and drain the lettuces carefully.

  2. Chop the lettuces finely and place them in a pan with margarine, onion, pepper, and salt.

  3. Fry for a few minutes until softened.

  4. Add white stock and rice or semolina, and cook until the rice is soft.

  5. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  6. Add milk and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in a little cream and serve with fried croutons.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Lettuce + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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

Lettuces
Form the bulk of the soup and give it its fresh, green flavour.
Margarine
Fat that softens the onion and lettuce and carries flavour.
Rice or semolina
Starch that thickens the soup as it cooks and gives body after sieving.
White stock
Liquid base that cooks the vegetables and rice into the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Pushing the cooked lettuce and rice through a sieve breaks down fibres and starch, giving a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup stringy and grainy.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, rice, milk, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, rice, milk, cream. 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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