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Soup Maigre , or Vegetable Soup

A lean vegetable soup made with green peas, lettuce, leek, celery, and seasonings, simmered and served in a tureen.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Soup Maigre , or Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put 2 quarts of water into a clean saucepan.

  2. Add 1½ pints of green peas, bouquet garni, bread crumbs, mace, pepper, salt, cloves, and loaf sugar.

  3. Simmer for 2 hours.

  4. Strain into another saucepan.

Finish the soup

  1. Add ½ pint of fresh-boiled peas.

  2. In a pan, lightly fry the shredded lettuce, chopped parsley, leek, and celery in butter.

  3. Add the fried vegetables to the soup.

  4. Simmer until tender.

  5. Pour into a tureen and 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Provide the main body and flavour of the soup as they cook down.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the soup slightly as they break down during simmering.
Leek
Adds a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness after gentle frying in butter.
Lettuce
Contributes tender texture and moisture when added and simmered in the soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, bread, pepper, clove, sugar, lettuce, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, bread, pepper, clove, sugar, lettuce, parsley. 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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