Skip to main content
Main

Julienne Soup

A vegetable soup made with turnip, carrot, celery, lettuce, sorrel, and stock, seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lettuce and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Julienne Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Sweat the vegetables

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the turnip, carrot, celery, and sorrel.

  3. Toss the vegetables for a few minutes until they are glazed but not burned.

  4. Reduce heat and cook the vegetables slowly for 20 minutes.

  5. Press out excess butter from the vegetables.

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Boil the lettuce in a cup of water for 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the lettuce.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the vegetables and lettuce to the boiling stock.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook gently for 15 minutes before serving.

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. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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

Butter
Melts and coats the vegetables, carrying flavor and helping them glaze lightly in the pan.
Turnip
Adds body and a mild, slightly sweet flavor as it softens in the stock.
Carrot
Contributes sweetness and color, softening into tender pieces in the soup.
Celery
Adds savory aroma and a firm texture that holds its shape during simmering.
Sorrel
Contributes a sharp, lemony acidity that brightens the soup.
Lettuce
Adds soft leafy texture and gentle body to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Toss the vegetables until glazed but not burned. Browning sugars in the vegetables builds flavor, but scorching turns them bitter. Medium heat and frequent tossing give a glaze without char, so the soup tastes sweet rather than harsh.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, celery, lettuce, sorrel, butter, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, celery, lettuce, sorrel, butter, pepper. 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.

More julienne soup recipes

Clear 4 See all 177 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipes