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Spring Soup

A green vegetable soup made with roots, leafy greens, and consommé stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 247 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the roots and vegetables into small pieces.

  2. Add spinach, cabbage lettuce, a little sorrel, tarragon, chervil, asparagus (cut into 1‑inch pieces), young peas, and cucumbers.

  3. Boil all green parts in water for a few minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Combine with your consommé stock and let them cook until tender.

  2. If using cauliflower, add small pieces to the soup tureen. Pour the boiling soup over the cauliflower to heat it.

  3. Season to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Roots (carrots, turnips)
Provide body and a mild sweetness as they soften in the stock.
Spinach
Adds soft texture and a fresh, green flavour once briefly cooked.
Green asparagus
Contributes tender texture and a fresh, grassy flavour to the soup.
Young peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture that suits the spring vegetables.
Consomme stock
Forms the clear liquid base that carries all the vegetables and flavours.

The step that matters

Boiling the green parts. Boiling the green vegetables only a few minutes preserves their bright colour and fresh flavour. Overcooking dulls the green pigment and softens the texture.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, spinach, lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, chervil):

  1. Endivefits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, spinach, lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, chervil. 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 soup recipes

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