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Jersey Soup

A clear, thick soup made with white stock, milk, sage, leek, herbs, peppercorns, and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Jersey Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put the stock into a stewpan.

  2. Slice the leek.

  3. Add the bunch of herbs and the peppercorns. Boil together for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain out the vegetables.

  5. Return the liquid to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the sage. Continue stirring until the soup is clear and thick.

  2. Pour in the boiling milk. Bring to a boil.

  3. Pour into a tureen. Sprinkle finely chopped parsley on top 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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

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

  3. Sage + leektop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Milk + leektop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Milk + parsleytop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,011 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

White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the soup's flavour.
Milk
Adds richness and a mellow, creamy body to the soup.
Sage
Contributes a savoury, aromatic herbal flavour.
Leek
Adds a mild onion-like sweetness to the stock.

The step that matters

Boiling the milk in. Milk can curdle or scorch when it is boiled hard or left too long over heat. Adding it to the hot soup and bringing it just to a boil, while stirring, keeps it smooth.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, leek, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, leek, parsley. 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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