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Soup

Bouillon Aux Iierbes

A clear broth made from sorrel, leeks, lettuce, purslane, chervil, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and purslane 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 ↓

Bouillon Aux Iierbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, pick, and chop the sorrel, leeks, lettuce, purslane, and chervil finely.

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped herbs with salt and butter.

  2. Add the water and stew until the mixture is reduced to half.

  3. Remove from heat and strain through a fine sieve.

  4. Season to taste 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.

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. Sorrel + purslanetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sorrel + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 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

Sorrel
Adds a bright, sharp acidity that gives the broth its fresh flavour.
Leeks
Contribute mild onion-like sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Lettuce
Adds gentle, mild vegetal flavour and body as it softens during stewing.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.

The step that matters

Stew until reduced to half. Long, gentle stewing concentrates the flavour of the herbs and water. Stewing too hard or too briefly leaves the broth either bitter and dull or thin and weak, so the reduction needs steady, controlled heat.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorrel, lettuce, purslane, chervil, butter):

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Beetrootfits about as well
  3. Leekthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sorrel, lettuce, purslane, chervil, butter. 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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