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Crecy Soup

A carrot and turnip soup with ham, herbs, and a roux, served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Crecy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cook the carrots, ham, onion, turnip, bay leaf, marjoram, mace, and parsley in 2 teaspoons of butter in a pot, stirring occasionally.

  2. Add 1 quart of stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a separate pan, then stir in 1 tablespoon of flour, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of pepper.

  2. Pour the roux into the hot stock and simmer for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the soup and serve with croutons.

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. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together367 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide the main body, sweetness and colour of the soup as they soften.
Butter
Carries the aromatics' flavour and enriches the soup with fat.
Flour
Forms a roux with melted butter that thickens the stock into a smooth soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the vegetables and herbs.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma as it cooks gently in butter.

The step that matters

Adding the roux to the hot stock. Flour thickens only when it is cooked in fat first and whisked into liquid. Adding it to cold or unstirred stock can cause lumps, so stir well while pouring and simmer long enough for the starch to thicken smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, ham, onion, turnip, marjoram, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, ham, onion, turnip, marjoram, parsley. 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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