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Spring Vegetable Soup

A light soup made with green peas, lettuce, onion, parsley, butter, egg yolks, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Spring Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vegetable base

  1. Combine the lettuces, onion, parsley, butter, and 1 pint of water in a stewpan.

  2. Simmer the mixture until the vegetables are tender.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Strain off the vegetables and reserve the liquid.

Finish the soup

  1. Add two‑thirds of the reserved liquid to the soup stock.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the remaining third of the liquid.

  3. Heat the egg mixture over the fire.

  4. Add the heated egg mixture and the vegetables to the strained soup just 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the soup and give it a smooth, rich body when gently heated.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the vegetables as they cook.
Lettuces
Break down during simmering to add body and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, tender texture to the finished soup.
Soup stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries the whole soup.

The step that matters

Heat the egg mixture over the fire. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, but if they get too hot they scramble and curdle, leaving the soup grainy. Heat slowly and keep stirring, then add the mixture to the soup just before serving.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, lettuce, parsley, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, parsley, butter, egg, 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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