Name: Potage De Printemps, or Spring Soup
Ingredients: 1 head of lettuce, cut into squares; 1 cup sorrel, cut into squares; 1 cup chervil, picked; small round onions, fried whole; 2 turnips, diced; 1 teaspoon sugar; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 4 cups light colored consomme; points of asparagus (optional)

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 ↓

Potage De Printemps, or Spring Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Fry the small round onions whole with the diced turnips until cooked and drained.

Make the soup

In a soup pot, combine the fried onions and turnips with the lettuce, sorrel, chervil, sugar, and salt.
Fill the pot with the consommé and skim until it boils.
Clarify the soup as you would with vegetable soup.
Add points of asparagus if desired, ensuring the soup is not too dark.

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.

Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together247 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together396 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together317 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sorrel + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together179 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Chervil + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together184 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

Lettuce: Adds fresh, tender leafy body to the soup as it cooks.
Sorrel: Contributes a bright, tart flavor that balances the sweetness of the soup.
Turnips: Provide a mild, slightly sweet root vegetable flavor and firm pieces that hold their shape.
Consommé: Forms the clear, light broth that carries all the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Clarify the soup and keep it light. Skimming removes proteins and fine particles that would cloud the consommé. Letting the soup darken from overcooking or excess browning spoils its clear color and delicate flavor.

Swap the asparagus

The recipe marks asparagus as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, sorrel, chervil, onion, turnip, sugar):

Leekfits better
Beetrootfits better
Chivefits better
Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, sorrel, chervil, onion, turnip, sugar. 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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Potage De Printemps, or Spring Soup