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Julienne Soup

A clear vegetable soup made with julienned carrots, turnips, celery, onions, leeks, butter, sugar, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Julienne Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash and dry the vegetables.

  2. Cut them into thin shreds, no longer than 1 inch.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the vegetable shreds and pounded sugar.

  3. Stir until slightly browned.

  4. Pour in the clear stock and simmer gently for 1 hour or until the vegetables are tender.

  5. Add the lumps of sugar 30 minutes before the soup is done.

  6. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

  7. Remove any scum and grease.

  8. Skim carefully.

  9. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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
Provide the main body, sweetness and colour of the soup as they soften.
Turnips
Add mild, slightly sweet flavour and body to the soup as they cook.
Leeks
Contribute a delicate onion-like aroma and savoury flavour to the stock.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness while the shreds gently brown.

The step that matters

Stirring the vegetables in butter until slightly browned. Browning develops sweet, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, but over-high heat or long stirring can scorch the butter and turn the soup bitter. Low heat and attention keep the colour light and even.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, leek, butter, sugar):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, leek, butter, 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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