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Soup

Bouillon Aux Herbes

A clear broth made from sorrel, leeks, lettuce, purslane, chervil, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and purslane share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bouillon Aux Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Wash, pick, and chop the sorrel, leeks, lettuce, purslane, and chervil finely.

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, melt the butter and add the chopped herbs and salt. Stir well and add the water.

  2. Simmer until the liquid is reduced by half.

  3. Remove from heat and strain through a fine sieve.

  4. Season to taste.

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. Sorrel + purslanetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Purslane + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sorrel + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 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

Sorrel
Adds a bright, sharp, lemony acidity to the broth.
Leeks
Contributes mild onion-like sweetness and savory depth to the liquid.
Lettuce
Adds gentle vegetal flavor and body as it softens in the simmer.
Purslane
Contributes a crisp, slightly tangy vegetal note to the broth.
Chervil
Adds a delicate, anise-like aroma that fades with long cooking.
Fresh butter
Carries the herb flavors and gives the broth a rich, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmer until the liquid is reduced by half. Reducing concentrates the herb flavors, but over-reducing can make the broth bitter or overly intense, and delicate herbs like chervil lose aroma with long heat. Watch the volume closely.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorrel, lettuce, purslane, chervil, butter):

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Beetrootfits about as well
  3. Leekthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, lettuce, purslane, chervil, butter. 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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