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Clear Brunoise Soup

A clear soup made with diced celery, leek, onion, turnip, carrot, tomato paste, and clear stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Clear Brunoise Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the vegetables and dice them into small cubes.

  2. Place the diced vegetables in a saucepan with cold water and a little salt, and bring to a boil.

  3. Strain the vegetables, then rinse them in cold water.

  4. Return the vegetables to a saucepan with slightly salted cold water and cook until tender.

Prepare the paste and stock

  1. Place the Italian paste in a separate saucepan with cold water and a little salt, and bring to a boil.

  2. In another saucepan, bring the clear stock to a boil.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the garnishes.

  2. Add the garnishes to the soup.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Clear stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its flavour.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and colour, and holds its shape when diced and cooked.
Leek
Contributes a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the broth.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma as it softens during cooking.
Celery
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma and a mild crisp-tender texture.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and a tender, soft texture once cooked.

The step that matters

Cook the vegetables until tender. Diced vegetables cook quickly and unevenly; overcooking turns them mushy and dulls their colour, while undercooking leaves them firm and raw-tasting. Starting in cold water and salting lightly helps them cook evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, leek, turnip, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, leek, turnip, carrot. 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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