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Soupe Maigre

A light vegetable soup made with onions, potatoes, turnip, celery, cabbage, bread crumbs, eggs, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Soupe Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Clean, scrape, and mince the vegetables.

  2. Put them in a pot with enough cold water to cover.

  3. When scalding hot, drain.

  4. Cover with 3 pints of boiling water.

  5. Stew slowly until reduced to pulp.

  6. Rub through a colander.

Finish the soup

  1. Season and heat again to boiling.

  2. Stir in the bread crumbs gradually.

  3. Add the butter.

  4. Heat the milk in another vessel and pour it into the soup kettle.

  5. Let the soup get very hot but do not boil.

  6. Dipping out a cupful, add it gradually to the beaten eggs.

  7. Return the egg mixture to the soup, stirring over the fire for an instant without boiling.

  8. Serve in a hot tureen, optionally adding grated cheese.

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. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potato
Breaks down into pulp, giving the soup body and a thick, smooth texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the soup as they are stirred in gradually.
Eggs
Thicken and enrich the soup when tempered in and heated gently without boiling.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness, softening the soup's flavor and texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Celery
Contributes savory aroma and flavor as it softens into the pulp.

The step that matters

Returning the egg mixture to the soup. If the soup boils after the eggs go in, the egg proteins scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture. Keep the soup very hot but below boiling and stir only briefly.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, onion, potato, turnip, celery, bread, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, onion, potato, turnip, celery, bread, egg. 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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