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Soup

Potage a LA Bonne Femme

A savory soup of onion, sorrel, lettuce, chervil, and bread served with egg yolk and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Potage a LA Bonne Femme

Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 247 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potage a LA Bonne Femme

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Slice the onion into very thin rounds.

  2. Sauté the sliced onion in a saucepan with butter without browning it.

  3. When the onion is half done, add the sorrel, lettuce, and chervil, all finely chopped, along with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  4. Stir until nearly done.

  5. Add the sugar and ½ cup of stock.

  6. Let it reduce to a glaze.

  7. Pour in 1 quart of stock.

  8. Bring to a boil.

  9. Set aside until serving.

Prepare the bread and finish

  1. Prepare 12-15 thin slices of bread with crust on one long side.

  2. Dry the slices in the oven.

  3. Remove excess fat from the soup.

  4. Bring the soup to a boil.

  5. Stir in beaten egg yolks mixed with cream or milk off the heat.

  6. Pour the soup over the slices of bread.

  7. Serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sorrel + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chervil + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks gently in butter, forming the flavour base of the soup.
Sorrel
Adds a sharp, acidic green flavour that brightens the soup.
Lettuce
Contributes body and a mild vegetal flavour to the soup base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and thicken it gently with cream when stirred in off the heat.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smooth, mellow texture.
Bread
Soaks up the soup, giving a softer, more substantial texture when dried first.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken when heated but scramble if they get too hot. Removing the pan from the heat before adding the yolk and cream mixture lets them thicken the soup smoothly without curdling.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sorrel, lettuce, chervil, pepper, nutmeg, sugar):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Chivebetter flavor fit
  3. Leekbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sorrel, lettuce, chervil, pepper, nutmeg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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