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Soupe Printanier

A clear vegetable soup made with spring carrots, turnips, celery, onions, asparagus, beans, and a touch of sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Soupe Printanier

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Prepare 2 quarts of consomme, free from grease, in a soup pot.

  2. Boil spring carrots until you can wipe off the skin, then trim them neatly.

  3. Peel young turnips until round and of equal size, then boil them.

  4. Place the boiled carrots and turnips in a sieve.

  5. Boil young heads of celery and spring onions for a few minutes to reduce their strong taste.

  6. Boil heads of asparagus and French beans until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Add the boiled carrots and turnips to the broth.

  2. Simmer until the vegetables are tender and the soup is flavorful.

  3. Add the asparagus and beans to the soup just before serving.

  4. Stir in a small lump of sugar and salt if needed.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Asparagus + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 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

Consomme
Forms the clear, savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Spring carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour, and hold their shape through simmering.
Young turnips
Contribute a mild, slightly peppery flavour and firm bite to the soup.
Asparagus
Adds a fresh, green flavour and tender texture when added near the end.
French beans
Add crisp-tender texture and fresh green flavour to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the asparagus and beans just before serving. Green vegetables keep their bright colour and tender-crisp texture only briefly in hot liquid. Adding them late avoids overcooking, which turns them dull and mushy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, asparagus, beans, sugar. 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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