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Soup

Julienne Soup

A vegetable soup made with shredded carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, onions, cabbage, sorrel, tarragon, chervil, and sugar in clear stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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. Cut the carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, and onions into thin shreds about an inch long.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over low heat, add the vegetables, salt, and sugar, and fry until lightly colored.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a soup pot and add enough clear stock for the desired quantity of soup.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to remove scum and grease as it rises to the surface.

  4. Add the shredded cabbage lettuces, sorrel, tarragon, chervil, and sugar.

  5. Simmer until the vegetables are tender, taste for seasoning, and 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 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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

Butter
Fat that gently fries the shredded vegetables and adds richness to the broth.
Carrots
Sweetness and color, and a firm texture that holds up during simmering.
Leeks
Mild onion-like aroma that builds flavor in the base.
Cabbage lettuces
Added near the end to soften in the stock while keeping a fresh, leafy texture.
Turnips
Firm, slightly peppery vegetable that adds body and bite to the soup.
Onions
Savory aroma and depth as they soften and brown lightly in the butter.

The step that matters

Frying the vegetables until lightly colored. Frying in butter over low heat browns the sugars and proteins gently, building savory flavor. Too much heat scorches the thin shreds and makes the broth bitter.

Swap the onion

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

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

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