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Broth Without Meat

A clear vegetable broth made by simmering assorted vegetables, herbs, and seasonings in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Broth Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Slice the vegetables and onion.

  2. Fry them in dripping or butter until softened.

  3. Add seasoning and coarse sea salt.

  4. Pour water over the mixture and stew, skimming occasionally.

  5. Add a little vermicelli or rice and cook until tender.

Add the herbs and strain

  1. In a separate pot, boil 1 quart of water with sorrel, chervil, and cut lettuces.

  2. Add any other approved sweet herbs, salt, and seasoning.

  3. Simmer in a covered pan for a short time, then strain.

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. Chervil + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Rice + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Vermicelli or rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch softens during cooking.
Lettuces
Adds moisture and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour to the broth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth when softened in fat.
Dripping or butter
Carries flavour and helps soften the vegetables without browning them.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rice, sorrel, chervil, lettuce. 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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