Skip to main content
Soup

Julienne Soup

A vegetable soup with shredded carrots, turnips, parsnip, leeks, lettuce, celery, and optional peas, beans, asparagus, simmered with butter, salt, sugar, pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turnip and leek 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 ↓

Julienne Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. In a saucepan, combine the shredded carrots, turnips, parsnip, leeks, butter, salt, and sugar.

  2. Cover and cook on low heat for 10 minutes in summer or 15 minutes in winter, shaking the pan occasionally.

  3. Add the shredded lettuce and celery, and cook for another 4-5 minutes.

Simmer the soup

  1. Gradually add the boiling water and pepper, then let the mixture simmer for 1 hour.

  2. If in season, add the green peas, French beans, and asparagus, and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.

  3. Before serving, stir in 1 tablespoon of butter for added richness.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

  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

Carrots
Provide sweetness, colour and body as they soften during the long simmer.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a tender, starchy body to the broth.
Leeks
Contribute a gentle onion-like aroma and sweetness to the base.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and helps carry the vegetable flavours.
Sugar
Balances the savoury flavour and enhances the caramelised sweetness of the vegetables.
Lettuce leaves
Add a delicate, slightly sweet vegetal flavour and soft texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the vegetables gently in butter before adding water. Cooking the vegetables covered on low heat draws out their moisture and sweetness without browning, building flavour into the base. Adding boiling water too early or at high heat can leave the vegetables bland and the broth weak.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, parsnip, leek, butter, sugar, lettuce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, parsnip, leek, butter, sugar, lettuce. 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.

More julienne soup recipes

Clear 4 See all 177 →

You might also like

Cream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipesCream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesMeatless Green Pea SoupMeatless Green Pea Soup22 recipesIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipes