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Spring Soup

A light soup made with veal stock, carrots, turnips, leeks, and peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the stock

  1. Keep the veal stock hot, but do not boil it.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Add the carrots, turnips, and leeks to the stock.

  2. Add the green peas and boil gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Taste for seasoning and 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.

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 + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together249 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal stock
Provides the liquid base and the savoury, meaty flavour of the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness, colour, and a tender bite as they cook.
Spring turnips
Add mild sweetness and a tender texture to the broth.
Spring leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness as they soften.
Green peas
Add sweetness, bright green colour, and a soft texture.

The step that matters

Keep the stock hot but do not boil it. Vigorous boiling makes stock cloudy and can break down its delicate flavour and fat, while gentle heat keeps it clear. Holding it just below the boil also keeps the vegetables tender rather than overcooked.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, turnip, leek):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, turnip, leek. 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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