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Soup

Peasant’s Broth-Maigre

A simple broth made with lentils, haricot beans, butter, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, and turnips, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 109 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Peasant’s Broth-Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the lentils and haricot beans in 1 quart of water.

  2. Add the butter, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, and turnips to the pot.

  3. Simmer for several hours until the vegetables are tender.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the broth and serve hot.

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. Lentils + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lentils + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lentils + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Lentils
Break down during simmering, releasing starch that thickens the broth and gives body.
Haricot beans
Soften during long cooking, adding body and a creamy texture to the broth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the finished broth.
Carrots
Release natural sugars as they cook, adding gentle sweetness and color.
White cabbage
Softens into the broth, contributing body and a mild, savory flavor.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add a mild, slightly peppery flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer until the vegetables are tender. Lentils and beans need a long, gentle simmer to soften fully. Their starch thickens the liquid as it cooks, so stopping early leaves a thin broth with firm, chalky pieces.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, beans, butter, carrot, lettuce, turnip):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, beans, butter, carrot, lettuce, turnip. 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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