Why it works: Lettuce and rice work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 520 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Brunoise-soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the broth
Reduce the broth in a stewpan until it thickens.
Moisten the vegetables thoroughly with the broth.
Skim off any fat.
Move the stewpan to the side of the heat.
Simmer and serve
Let it simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes without pureeing the vegetables.
Just before serving, add the blanched lettuce and cooked rice or pasta.
Pour the soup into a tureen.
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.
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Lettuce + ricetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together520 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh clear broth
- Forms the liquid base; reducing it concentrates its flavor and gives the soup body.
- Tender lettuce leaves
- Adds soft texture and fresh, green flavor to the finished soup.
- Cooked rice, barley, or pasta
- Adds substance and bulk, absorbing some of the broth as it sits.
The step that matters
Simmer without pureeing the vegetables. Keeping the soup at a gentle simmer, without blending, lets the broth reduce and flavor evenly while the soup stays clear. Vigorous boiling or pureeing clouds the broth and breaks up the vegetables.
“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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