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Soup

Bouillon Aux Iierbes

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

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 Iierbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. In a pot, combine the chopped herbs with salt and fresh butter.

Make the broth

  1. Add 3 pints of water and stew until reduced by half.

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

  3. 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 sourness that gives the broth its characteristic flavor.
Leeks
Contribute mild onion-like sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Lettuce
Adds a gentle, mild vegetal body and softness to the broth.
Purslane
Adds a tender, slightly tart green flavor and some body as it cooks down.
Chervil
Contributes a delicate, aniseed-like aroma to the broth.
Fresh butter
Carries flavor and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.

The step that matters

Stewing until reduced by half. Reducing the water concentrates the flavors of the herbs and butter. Stopping too early leaves the broth weak and watery, while over-reducing can make it overly intense and salty once seasoned.

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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