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Soup Maigre , or Vegetable Soup

A light vegetable soup made with peas, lettuce, leek, celery, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Soup Maigre , or Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put 2 quarts of water into a clean saucepan.

  2. Add 1½ pints of green peas, bouquet garni, bread crumbs, mace, pepper, salt, cloves, and pounded sugar.

  3. Simmer for 2 hours.

  4. Strain into another saucepan.

Finish the soup

  1. Add ½ pint of fresh‑boiled peas.

  2. In a pan, lightly fry the shredded lettuce, chopped parsley, leek, and celery in butter.

  3. Add the fried vegetables to the soup.

  4. Simmer until tender.

  5. Pour into a tureen 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  5. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Break down during the long simmer to give the soup its body and flavour.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the soup slightly by absorbing liquid and adding body.
Leek
Fried in butter first, adding a mild savoury, sweet onion-like aroma.
Lettuce
Lightly fried in butter, then added to contribute soft texture and a fresh vegetable flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer for 2 hours. A long, gentle simmer is needed to soften the peas fully and draw out their flavour; a hard boil can break them up unevenly and cloud the soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, bread, pepper, clove, sugar, lettuce, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, bread, pepper, clove, sugar, lettuce, parsley. 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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