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Autumn Soup

A hearty soup made with cabbage, lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, chervil, cucumber, peas, butter, flour, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Autumn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Wash and drain the chopped cabbages, cos lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, and chervil.

  2. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the vegetables and cucumbers, stirring occasionally until little liquid remains.

  4. Stir in the flour until well combined.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in the stock and add the green peas.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes to preserve the flavor of the vegetables.

  3. Season with salt and sugar before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sorrel + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together119 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

Cabbages
Form the bulk of the soup and become tender during the long simmer.
Butter
Carries the vegetables in the pan and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup by binding with the butter and cooking juices.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that the vegetables cook and soften in.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, green flavor to the soup.
Cos lettuce
Softens into the soup, adding body and mild leafy flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour added to butter and vegetables must be mixed in fully and cooked briefly, or it stays floury and forms lumps instead of thickening the soup evenly once the stock is added.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, chervil, cucumber, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, chervil, cucumber, butter, flour. 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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