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Cream Soup Aux Herbes

A creamy soup made with milk, cream, egg yolks, stock, and chopped herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cream Soup Aux Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the cream and milk together, then set aside to cool.

  2. When almost cold, whip the egg yolks with the mixture, then strain into the stock.

Thicken and serve

  1. Stir over low heat until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

  2. Chop the herbs, wash them, and add to the soup along with salt at the same time as the eggs.

  3. Pour into a tureen and serve immediately.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Chervil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup as they set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, velvety body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Milk
Adds body and softness, diluting the richness of the cream.
Stock
Provides the savory liquid base that carries the other flavors.
Tarragon
Contributes its distinctive aromatic, anise-like flavor to the soup.
Sorrel
Adds a bright, lemony acidity that lifts the creamy base.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken by gentle coagulation. If the soup boils, the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, thickened soup.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, egg, tarragon, chervil, sorrel, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, tarragon, chervil, sorrel, pepper. 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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