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Spring Soup and Soup a LA Julienne

A clear vegetable soup with turnips, carrots, celery, leeks, lettuce, sorrel, asparagus, French beans, and dried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Soup and Soup a LA Julienne

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the broth, turnips, carrots, celery, and leeks or onions.

  2. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Add the lettuce and sorrel, and continue boiling until tender.

  4. Just before serving, add the asparagus and French beans or green peas.

Julienne variation and serving

  1. For Julienne soup, stew the carrots in butter until tender, then add the boiling stock.

  2. Skim off any fat from the surface and finish as above.

  3. Optionally, add chervil, spinach, green onions, or small tufts of broccoli or cauliflower.

  4. Serve with small rounds of dried bread.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Broth or beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Butter
Enriches the carrots and adds richness to the finished soup.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour, and hold their shape as julienne strips.
Lettuce
Softens as it boils, adding body and a mild, green flavour.
Sorrel
Adds a sharp, lemony acidity that brightens the soup.
Asparagus
Contributes a tender texture and fresh, vegetal flavour.

The step that matters

Stew the carrots in butter until tender. Cooking the carrots gently in butter softens them fully and lets the fat carry flavour. Adding the boiling stock too early would leave them firm and dull in taste.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, carrot, leek, lettuce, sorrel, asparagus):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, leek, lettuce, sorrel, asparagus. 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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