Skip to main content
Main

White Soup Without Meat

A clear soup made with water, bread crumb, herbs, pepper, cloves, onion, celery, endive, lettuce, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
White Soup Without Meat

Why it works: Endive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

White Soup Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Put 2 quarts of water in a clean saucepan.

  2. Add the bread crumb, sweet herbs, pepper, cloves, chopped onion, and salt, then boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the cut white parts of celery, endive, and lettuce, and boil until smooth.

  4. Strain the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Return it to the fire.

  2. When it begins to boil, add the butter rolled in flour, then boil for a few more minutes.

  3. Serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Endive + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Celery + endivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together160 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Crumb of a small baker's loaf
Bread crumb soaks up liquid and thickens the soup body.
White parts of celery, endive, and lettuce
Vegetables give the soup its body and mild, fresh flavour.
1 lump of butter
Butter rolled in flour enriches the soup and helps it thicken smoothly.
1 tablespoon flour
Flour coating the butter helps thicken the soup without lumps.

The step that matters

Adding the butter rolled in flour. Flour needs to be whisked or dispersed into hot liquid and boiled briefly to thicken without lumps. Dropping it in unevenly can leave clumps, so it should be added once the soup is already boiling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, celery, endive, lettuce, butter, flour):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, celery, endive, lettuce, 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.

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipesCelery Cream SoupCelery Cream Soup15 recipes