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Soup a LA Piemontaise

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription

This recipe’s ingredient list has no crust or pastry, so it bakes more like a fruit dish than a pastry pie.

From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 795 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

  1. Prepare a brown turnip soup.

  2. Mix in a large spoonful of tomatoes.

  3. Before serving, incorporate a paste made from anchovies, garlic, and butter, passed through a fine sieve.

  4. Pour the soup into a tureen containing small potato quenelles and parboiled chervil and tarragon leaves.

  5. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese on the side.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together795 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Tomato + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,797 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,512 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,490 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the chervil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, garlic, butter, potato, tarragon, parmesan cheese):

  1. Basilbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  4. Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, garlic, butter, potato, tarragon, parmesan cheese. 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).

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