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Julienne Soup

A vegetable soup made with shredded carrots, turnips, parsnip, leek, lettuce, celery, and optional peas, beans, asparagus, simmered in butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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

Prepare

  1. Shred the carrots, turnips, parsnip, and leek.

  2. Place the shredded vegetables in a saucepan.

Make the soup

  1. Add butter, salt, and sugar, cover, and cook for 10 minutes in summer or 15 minutes in winter, shaking occasionally.

  2. Add chopped lettuce and celery, and cook for another 4-5 minutes.

  3. Gradually add boiling water and pepper, then simmer for 1 hour.

  4. If in season, add green peas, French beans, and asparagus, and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.

  5. Before serving, stir in 1 tablespoon of butter for a rich finish.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide sweetness, body and colour to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a tender, starchy body to the soup.
Leek
Contributes a mild onion-like aroma that deepens as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and rich flavour at the finish.
Lettuce
Adds moisture and a soft, delicate vegetable flavour as it wilts.

The step that matters

Covered cooking of the vegetables in butter. Cooking the shredded vegetables covered in butter, salt and sugar lets them soften in their own moisture without browning. Keeping the lid on and stirring occasionally prevents scorching and draws out natural sweetness, which sets the flavour base for the whole soup.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, parsnip, leek, butter, sugar, lettuce):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, parsnip, leek, butter, sugar, lettuce. 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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