Skip to main content
Main

Cream of Lettuce Soup

A creamy soup made from shredded lettuce, stock, roux, onion, parsley, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cream of Lettuce Soup

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 ↓

Cream of Lettuce Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the shredded lettuce in the stock for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a colander.

  3. Return the strained soup to the heat.

  4. Stir in the white roux, minced onion, and parsley.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the milk in a separate vessel.

  2. Season the milk with salt and pepper.

  3. Stir in the whipped egg.

  4. Pour the mixture into the tureen.

  5. Add the lettuce soup to the tureen.

  6. Serve with crisp dinner biscuits.

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

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

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

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

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Provides the main body and green flavour of the soup as it simmers in the stock.
White roux
Thickens the soup by starch gelatinisation, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Egg
Enriches and thickens the milk mixture when gently heated, adding richness and body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the savoury stock flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the whipped egg into the milk. If the milk is too hot or the egg is added carelessly, the egg can curdle or scramble instead of thickening smoothly. Keep the heat moderate and stir steadily while adding it.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, parsley, milk, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Lettuce SoupLettuce Soup8 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes