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Spring Soup and Soup a LA Julienne

A clear broth soup with turnips, carrots, celery, leeks, onions, lettuce, sorrel, asparagus, beans or peas, served with optional sautéed carrots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Soup and Soup a LA Julienne

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the broth, turnips, carrots, celery, leeks, and onions.

  2. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Add the torn lettuce and sorrel leaves, and continue boiling until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the asparagus points and French beans or green peas.

  2. For Julienne soup, first sauté the carrots in butter until tender, then add the boiling stock and skim off the fat.

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. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Add body and a mild, slightly sweet flavour to the broth as they soften.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and colour, and hold their shape as julienne strips.
Leeks
Add a gentle onion-like aroma and savoury depth to the broth.
Lettuce
Adds tender leafy body and a fresh, delicate vegetal flavour when boiled.
Asparagus points
Provide a fresh, grassy flavour and tender texture to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when used to sauté the carrots.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after adding the stock. Fat that is not removed floats on the surface and makes the soup greasy and dull on the palate. Skimming while the broth is hot is easiest and leaves a clean, clear soup.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, carrot, leek, lettuce, sorrel, asparagus):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, leek, lettuce, sorrel, 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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