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White Soup, Without Meat

A clear vegetable soup made with water, bread crumb, herbs, spices, onions, celery, endive, lettuce, butter, and grated French roll.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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White Soup, Without Meat

Why it works: Endive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

White Soup, Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Combine water, bread crumb, sweet herbs, pepper, cloves, onions, and salt in a clean saucepan.

  2. Cover and boil until smooth.

  3. Add the white parts of celery, endive, and lettuce.

  4. Boil and strain the soup into a clean saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the herbs and butter until melted.

  2. Boil until very smooth.

  3. Skim off any scum that forms.

  4. Soak the grated French roll in some of the soup.

  5. Serve.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Endive + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + endivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together160 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Crumb of a 2-penny loaf
Thickens the broth and gives the soup a smooth, body-rich texture.
White parts of celery, endive, and lettuce
Provide the vegetable base and mild flavor that make up the soup.
2 tablespoons butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the soup.
1 small french roll, grated
Soaked in soup to add body and further thicken the broth.

The step that matters

Boil until very smooth. Thorough boiling breaks down the bread and vegetables so they blend into a uniform texture; stopping early leaves lumps and a grainy mouthfeel.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, celery, endive, lettuce, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, celery, endive, lettuce, 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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