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Spring Soup

A soup made from green peas, lettuce, purslane, sorrel, chervil, orache, and optional greens, thickened with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Purslane and sorrel share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. In a covered stew-pan, combine green peas, lettuce, purslane, sorrel, chervil, and orache leaves with butter, pepper, salt, and a little water or broth.

  2. Stew gently over low heat until tender.

  3. Squeeze through a colander to obtain a smooth puree.

Finish the soup

  1. Dilute the puree to your desired thickness with water or broth.

  2. Add in previously boiled rice or grated bread crumbs, season to taste, and let it simmer for another 15 minutes.

  3. Before serving, stir in the egg yolks to thicken.

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. Purslane + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Purslane + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 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

Green peas
Form the main body of the soup and give it its green color and sweet, vegetal flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the soup a smooth mouthfeel.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup as they set gently with heat, giving it a richer, silkier body.
Cooked rice or grated bread crumbs
Add body and starch that help thicken the puree and give it a fuller texture.
Sorrel
Contributes a sharp, acidic, lemony note that brightens the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by setting when heated, so they can curdle or turn grainy if the soup is boiling or too hot. Stir them in off the heat, just before serving, to keep the soup smooth.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, lettuce, purslane, sorrel, chervil, spinach, chive):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, purslane, sorrel, chervil, spinach, chive. 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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