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Soup Puree Op Leeks, Viennoise

A creamy soup made from leeks, broth, cream, and egg yolks, finished with chives and fried bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Soup Puree Op Leeks, Viennoise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and lightly fry the sliced leeks without browning them.

  2. Add 1 to 2 quarts of broth and cook until the leeks are well done.

  3. Stir in 3 quarts of thickened chicken or veal broth.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and a pinch of sugar, then add the faggot of parsley.

  5. Let it cook slowly for 25 minutes.

  6. Remove the faggot, skim off the grease, and strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  7. Return the soup to the saucepan to keep warm.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, dilute the egg yolks in the cream and add 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Stir until the butter melts, then add the chopped chives.

  3. Serve the soup with the cream mixture and fried bread crumbs on the side.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

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

  4. Leek + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Cook down into the soft, sweet body of the soup.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream mixture and give the finished soup a rich texture.
Cream
Adds richness and smooth mouthfeel to the enriched finish.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the leeks and the finishing mixture.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently; if the soup is boiling when they go in, they can scramble and curdle. Keep the soup hot but not boiling and stir steadily while adding the mixture.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (leek, butter, chicken, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against leek, butter, chicken, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, cream. 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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