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Julienne Soup

A clear vegetable soup made with julienned carrots, turnip, onions, leek, parsley, bay leaves, cloves, and optional beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Julienne Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Add salt to the liquid and bring it slowly to a boil, skimming off the foam as it rises.

  2. Add cold water, bring to a boil again, and skim once more. Repeat this process three times.

  3. When no more foam rises, add the carrots, turnip, onions, leek, parsley, bay leaves, and cloves.

  4. Simmer for 1 hour. If the foam is effectively removed, the soup will be clear and bright.

Prepare the julienne vegetables

  1. For the julienne vegetables, scrape the carrots and cut them into thin ribbons, then into matchstick‑sized strips.

  2. Peel the turnip, cut it into slices, and then into strips of the same size as the carrot strips.

  3. Soak the prepared vegetables overnight and boil gently until tender.

Garnish

  1. Optional: Add a little onion and celery cut into strips for garnish, and consider adding asparagus tips in spring, peas in summer, and French beans in autumn.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Carrots
Provide sweetness and colour, and form the julienne strips served in the soup.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Turnip
Adds a mild, slightly peppery flavour and firm texture to the julienne strips.
Leek
Adds a mild onion-like aroma that deepens the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam. Foam is coagulated protein and impurities. Removing it thoroughly before simmering keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, while leftover foam cloudies it and can make it taste muddy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, onion, leek, parsley, beef):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, leek, parsley, beef. 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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