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French Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with lamb leg, water, and assorted chopped vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

French Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the leg of lamb and water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer until the lamb is cooked through.

  4. Remove the pot from heat and let it cool.

  5. Skim off any fat that rises to the top.

Finish the soup

  1. The next day, return the pot to the stove and add the chopped vegetables.

  2. Boil the soup for three hours, stirring occasionally.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Provides the main meat and rich flavour that the broth is built on.
Potatoes
Break down slightly during long simmering, adding body and thickening the soup.
Carrots
Hold their shape through long boiling and add gentle sweetness.
Onions
Soften during simmering and add savoury depth to the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that brighten the flavour of the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off any fat that rises to the top. Fat from the lamb floats and sets as it cools. Removing it before the vegetables go in keeps the soup from tasting greasy and gives a cleaner broth.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, carrot, potato, onion, cabbage, turnip, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, carrot, potato, onion, cabbage, turnip, 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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