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French Herb Broth

A cold broth made with sorrel, cabbage lettuce, chervil, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 247 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

French Herb Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the water in a pot.

  2. Add the sorrel, lettuce, and chervil, all well washed.

  3. Stir in the salt and cream.

  4. Cover the pot and let it simmer for a few minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Serve cold.

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. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  5. Sorrel + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 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

Sorrel
Adds a sharp, lemony acidity that brightens the flavor of the broth.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the broth a smoother, silkier body.
Cabbage lettuce
Contributes leafy body and a mild vegetal flavor to the broth.
Chervil
Adds a delicate, faintly anise-like herbal aroma.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorrel, lettuce, chervil, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, lettuce, chervil, 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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