Skip to main content
Soup

Potage a LA Bonne Femme

A French soup made with shredded lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, chervil, cucumber, butter, stock, eggs, cream, and French roll crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potage a LA Bonne Femme

Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 247 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potage a LA Bonne Femme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the lettuces, sorrel, tarragon, and chervil.

  2. Finely shred the washed lettuces, sorrel, tarragon, and chervil.

  3. Peel the cucumber and slice it thinly, then shred the cucumber slices.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the shredded vegetables and herbs to the melted butter.

  3. Cook the mixture for 5 minutes without discoloring.

  4. Sprinkle in the salt and castor sugar.

  5. Add the stock to the mixture.

  6. Simmer until the vegetables are tender.

  7. Beat the eggs and cream together.

  8. Let the soup cool slightly.

  9. Strain the egg and cream mixture into the soup.

  10. Return the soup to heat.

  11. Stir until the eggs are cooked.

Serve

  1. Dry the crust of the French roll in the oven for a few minutes.

  2. Cut the dried crust into small round pieces.

  3. Place the pieces in a tureen.

  4. Pour the hot soup over the pieces.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sorrel + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together119 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

Lettuces
Form the bulk of the soup and become tender when simmered.
Butter
Softens the shredded vegetables and carries their flavour without browning them.
White stock
Provides the liquid that cooks the vegetables into a soup.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently when heated, giving it a smooth body.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and softness to the egg mixture.
Sorrel
Adds a sharp, acidic flavour that brightens the soup.

The step that matters

Stir until the eggs are cooked. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but curdle if overheated, so the soup should be heated slowly and stirred while it thickens.

Flavor stand-ins for the cucumber

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

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Chivebetter flavor fit
  3. Beetrootbetter flavor fit
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, sorrel, tarragon, chervil, butter, sugar, egg. 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).

“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.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes