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Soup

Potage a LA Faubonne

A French vegetable soup with lettuce, sorrel, spinach, celery, onions, peas puree, carrot, and turnip.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 317 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the lettuce, sorrel, spinach, celery, and blanched tiny onions, then sauté for 6-7 minutes until softened.

  3. Gradually pour in the boiling stock, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  4. Stir in the fresh peas puree.

  5. Once boiling, add the diced carrot and turnip.

  6. Cook until the vegetables are tender, then 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.

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 + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + peastop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Softens into the soup, adding body and a mild, fresh vegetable flavour.
Sorrel
Adds a sharp, lemony acidity that brightens the soup.
Fresh peas puree
Thickens the broth and adds sweetness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour as the vegetables soften.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lettuce, sorrel, spinach, celery, pepper, peas):

  1. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  2. Leekbetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lettuce, sorrel, spinach, celery, pepper, peas. 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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