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Spring Soup

A light vegetable soup made with carrots, turnip, celery, cauliflower, cabbage, sorrel, chervil, tarragon, peas, asparagus, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Cut the carrots and turnip into small rounds.

  2. Add the carrots, turnip, chopped celery, whole onions, and cauliflower to 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Finish the soup

  1. Chop the sorrel and lettuce into small pieces and add them along with the chervil and tarragon to the soup, along with 1 teaspoon of sugar.

  2. When all vegetables are tender, add the peas and asparagus points.

  3. Serve with croutons.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 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
Hold their shape as firm rounds and add natural sweetness and colour to the broth.
Peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture that softens without falling apart.
Asparagus points
Add a fresh, grassy flavour and tender bite near the end of cooking.
Sorrel
Adds bright acidity that lifts the flavour of the broth.
Cauliflower
Contributes body and mild sweetness as it cooks into the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the peas and asparagus. Peas and asparagus cook quickly and turn dull grey-green and mushy if boiled too long. Adding them only once the other vegetables are tender keeps their colour, texture and flavour bright.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, sorrel):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Endivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, sorrel. 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.

More spring vegetable soup recipes

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