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J Iaigre, or Vegetable Gravy Soup

A hearty vegetable gravy soup made with butter, onions, turnip, carrot, celery, peas, bread crust, spices, and optional mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

J Iaigre, or Vegetable Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Melt the butter in a large stew-pan over low heat.

  2. Add sliced onion, diced turnip, carrot, and celery.

  3. Cover and cook until lightly browned, about 25 minutes.

  4. Bring the peas and water to a boil in a separate saucepan, then add them to the stew-pan.

  5. Bring to a boil and skim the surface.

  6. Add the bread crust, allspice, black pepper, and mace.

  7. Cover and simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  8. Remove from heat and let it sit for 10 minutes.

  9. Carefully pour the soup into a large basin, leaving sediment behind.

  10. Let it stand for about 2 hours until clear.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil shredded turnip and carrot in cold water for 5 minutes, then drain.

  2. Add the clear soup back to the stew-pan, along with the boiled roots.

  3. Simmer until tender, about 30-40 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and a little cayenne pepper.

  5. Optionally add mushroom ketchup.

  6. 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Butter
Browns the vegetables and carries flavour into the soup base.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and depth as it softens and lightly browns.
Peas
Contribute body and a mild sweetness to the soup.
Bread crust
Adds body and helps the soup clarify as it settles.
Turnip
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the soup.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and colour to the soup.

The step that matters

Letting the soup stand to clear. Pouring off the liquid only after it has rested lets sediment settle to the bottom of the pot. Disturbing it would leave the soup cloudy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, turnip, carrot, celery, bread, allspice):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, turnip, carrot, celery, bread, allspice. 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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