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Soup

Potage a LA Bonne Femme

A green soup made with lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, cucumber, butter, stock, egg yolks, cream, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Potage a LA Bonne Femme

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

Potage a LA Bonne Femme

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Finely shred the lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, and cucumber.

  2. In a pot, toss the shredded vegetables in butter until absorbed.

  3. Add the boiling white stock and cook for a few minutes.

  4. Cool the mixture slightly.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, cream, and milk together.

  2. Strain this mixture into the soup and thicken without boiling.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sorrel + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together425 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup into a smooth, lightly creamy texture as they set gently with heat.
Butter
Coats the shredded vegetables, carrying flavour and giving the soup a rich mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds fat and body, giving the soup a smoother, richer texture.
Lettuce
Forms the soup's main body of mild, green vegetable flavour.

The step that matters

Thicken without boiling. Egg yolks begin to scramble and turn grainy above about 70°C (160°F). Adding the yolk mixture to hot soup gently and keeping it below a simmer lets it thicken smoothly instead of curdling.

Flavor stand-ins for the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, butter, pepper, egg, cream):

  1. Chivebetter flavor fit
  2. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  3. Leekbetter flavor fit
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, butter, pepper, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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