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Soup

Lettuce Soup

A soup made from chopped lettuce, butter, sugar, vinegar, flour, pepper, salt, egg, broth, bread, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Lettuce Soup

Why it works: Lettuce and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lettuce Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the lettuce

  1. Stew the chopped lettuce with butter, sugar, and Tarragon vinegar, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

Make the soup

  1. Add flour, pepper, and salt.

  2. Break an egg over the mixture.

  3. Pour in the weak broth and stir gently.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen with diced bread added.

  2. Pour in cream just before serving.

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. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the main body and green vegetable flavor of the soup as it softens.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries flavor as the lettuce stews.
Flour
Starch thickens the broth so it becomes smoother and less watery.
Egg
Sets lightly in the hot liquid, adding body and a silkier texture.
Bread
Soaks up liquid and adds soft body to the finished soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Stew the lettuce while stirring constantly. Butter and sugar scorch easily over direct heat, and scorched sugar turns bitter and dark. Constant stirring spreads the heat and keeps the lettuce from sticking and burning on the base of the pan.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, tarragon, vinegar, flour, pepper, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, tarragon, vinegar, flour, pepper, egg. 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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