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Spring Soup and Soup X LA Julienne

A clear vegetable soup made with spring vegetables such as turnips, carrots, celery, leeks, lettuce, sorrel, asparagus, and beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Soup and Soup X LA Julienne

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine the broth, turnips, carrots, celery, and leeks or onions in a large pot.

  2. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Add the lettuce and sorrel, and continue boiling until tender.

  4. Just before serving, add the asparagus and French beans or green peas.

Julienne variation

  1. For Julienne soup, stew the carrots in butter until tender, then add the boiling stock and skim off the fat.

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. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Add body and a mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavour to the broth.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour, and hold their shape through simmering.
Leeks or onions
Build a gentle savoury aroma as they soften in the broth.
Lettuce
Softens as it boils, adding tender leaf texture and mild sweetness to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when the carrots are stewed for the Julienne soup.

The step that matters

Add the lettuce and sorrel and boil until tender. Greens are delicate and turn dull, grey and stringy if overcooked. Boiling only until they soften keeps their colour and a fresh, tender texture.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, carrot, leek, lettuce, sorrel, asparagus):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, leek, lettuce, sorrel, asparagus. 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 vegetable soup recipes

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