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Soup Puree of Leeks, Viennoise

A creamy soup made from leeks, broth, cream, and egg yolks, finished with chives and fried bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Soup Puree of Leeks, Viennoise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and lightly fry the sliced leeks without browning them.

  2. Add 1 to 2 quarts of broth and cook until the leeks are tender.

  3. Stir in 3 quarts of thickened chicken or veal broth.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar, then add the parsley.

  5. Let it cook slowly for 25 minutes.

Strain and finish

  1. Remove the parsley, skim off any grease, and strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  2. Return the soup to the saucepan to keep warm.

  3. In a bowl, dilute the egg yolks in the cream and stir in 2 tablespoons of butter until melted.

  4. Add the cream mixture to the soup and stir in the chopped chives.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup with fried bread crumbs on the side.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

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

  4. Leek + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Become tender and sweet, forming the body and flavour of the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the cream mixture, giving the finished soup a smooth, velvety texture.
Cream
Adds richness and body, and softens the flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour, helping to soften the leeks without browning them.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the soup is too hot when they are added they can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the soup warm rather than boiling when you stir them in.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (leek, butter, chicken, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against leek, butter, chicken, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, cream. 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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