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Potage a LA Hollandaise

A French soup made with veal or chicken stock, butter, flour, egg yolks, cream, peas, carrots, cucumber, tarragon, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 629 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Trim the peas, carrots, and cucumber with a round cutter the size and shape of peas.

  2. Cook them in boiling water, being careful not to overcook.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter and flour in a stewpan.

  2. Add the stock and let it boil well.

  3. In a bowl, break the yolks of eggs and add the cream to make a liaison.

  4. Add the liaison to the stock and let it just come to a boil, ensuring it does not curdle.

  5. Strain into a clean stewpan.

  6. Add the previously cooked vegetables and tarragon.

  7. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Peas + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together629 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Peas + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,994 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,214 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the soup into a smooth, rich liaison that sets lightly with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and forms the base with flour for thickening.
Flour
Thickens the stock when cooked briefly with butter into a roux.
Cream
Adds richness and body, and softens the texture of the egg liaison.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the liaison to the stock. Egg yolks curdle if they get too hot. Bring the soup only just to a boil after adding the liaison, and do not let it boil hard, so it stays smooth and thick.

Flavor stand-ins for the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, egg, cream, peas, cucumber):

  1. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  2. Leekbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, egg, cream, peas, cucumber. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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