Skip to main content
Soup

Julien Soup

A vegetable soup with carrots, turnip, leek, celery, stock, cayenne, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Julien Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Clean and cut the carrots, turnip, leek, and celery into shreds about 1 inch long.

  2. Place the vegetables in a saucepan with salt, sugar, vinegar, and cold water; boil until tender, about 20 minutes, then drain.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate pot, boil the stock, add the vegetables, and cook uncovered for 30 minutes.

  2. Stir in cayenne and sherry, then 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.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Carrots
Provide sweetness, colour and body once softened in the stock.
Turnip
Adds a mildly sharp, earthy flavour and firm texture that holds its shape.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, aromatic savoury note and some crisp texture.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Boil the vegetables until tender before draining. Cooking shreds fully softens the fibres so they feel tender in the soup; undercooked pieces stay tough and chewy, while the boiling water and vinegar help keep vegetable colour bright.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, leek, sugar, vinegar, sherry):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, leek, sugar, vinegar, sherry. 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.

You might also like

Cream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipes