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Soup

Spring Soup

A green vegetable soup made with peas, lettuce, purslane, sorrel, chervil, orache, butter, herbs, rice or breadcrumbs, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Purslane and sorrel share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree

  1. In a covered stew-pan, combine green peas, lettuce, purslane, sorrel, chervil, and orache leaves.

  2. Add butter, pepper, salt, and a little water or broth.

  3. Stew gently over low heat until tender.

  4. Squeeze through a colander to obtain a smooth puree.

Finish and serve

  1. Dilute the puree to your desired thickness with water or broth.

  2. Add in cooked rice or grated bread crumbs, season to taste, and let simmer for another 15 minutes.

  3. Before serving, stir in the egg yolks for thickening.

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. Purslane + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Purslane + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 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

Green peas
Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavour of the puree.
Lettuce
Adds soft leafy bulk and mild flavour that blends into the puree.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently as they warm, giving a smoother, richer texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounded mouthfeel and carries flavour.
Cooked rice or grated bread crumbs
Add starch that helps thicken the puree and give it body.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks for thickening. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heating. If the soup boils after they go in, they can scramble and curdle, so keep it hot but not boiling while stirring.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, lettuce, purslane, sorrel, chervil, spinach, chive):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, purslane, sorrel, chervil, spinach, chive. 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 spring soup recipes

Thick 3 See all 29 →

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