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Spring Soup

A light soup of carrots, turnips, celery, onions, cauliflower, peas, asparagus, and lettuce simmered in chicken or beef stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Spring Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the carrots and turnips into small round shapes.

  2. Add the sliced celery, young onions, and cauliflower flowerets.

  3. Parboil the vegetables in boiling water for 3 minutes.

  4. Drain the vegetables and add them to the stock.

Simmer the soup

  1. Let the mixture simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the lettuce leaves cut to the size of a half-dollar.

  3. When the lettuce is tender, add the green peas and asparagus heads 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cauliflower + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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
Hold their shape and add sweetness and body as they soften in the broth.
Turnips
Add firm texture and a mild sweetness as they cook in the stock.
Cauliflower
Adds bulk and a tender texture that absorbs the flavor of the stock.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor and a crisp-tender texture to the soup.
Green peas
Add sweetness and bright color, and are already cooked so need only gentle heating.
Asparagus heads
Add a grassy flavor and tender texture, and are already cooked so need only gentle heating.

The step that matters

Adding the peas and asparagus at the end. Both were boiled beforehand, so they only need to be heated through. Adding them too early lets them overcook, turning soft and dull in color and flavor.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, onion, cauliflower, chicken, asparagus):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, onion, cauliflower, chicken, asparagus. 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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