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Julienne Soup

A clear beef stock soup with julienned carrots, celery, lettuce, turnip, leek, onion, and herbs, finished with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Clarify the stock

  1. Combine the stock, beaten egg whites, and shredded beef in a pan.

  2. Slowly bring to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes to clear.

  4. Strain through a clean towel or jelly bag.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the vegetables into fine strips, about 1 inch long.

  2. Boil the carrots, turnips, leeks, onions, and celery in a little boiling stock until tender. Drain the vegetables.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the drained vegetables to the soup along with the lettuce, tarragon, and chervil. Boil for 15 minutes.

  2. 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. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 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. Lettuce + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 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

Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat, trapping particles so the stock clears to a clear broth.
Lean beef
Adds meaty flavour to the stock and, with the whites, helps clarify it.
Brown stock
Forms the base of the soup, carrying all the flavour.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and colour as a julienne vegetable.
Leek
Adds a mild onion-like flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Letting the stock stand and straining it clear. Egg whites must be heated slowly so they coagulate gently and trap cloudy particles. Boiling hard breaks up the raft, and straining through a clean cloth removes what remains, so the broth stays clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, lettuce, egg, turnip, leek, tarragon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, lettuce, egg, turnip, leek, tarragon. 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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