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Julien Soup

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

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 ↓

Julien Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and slice the vegetables into small pieces.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Place the vegetables in a pot with salt, sugar, vinegar, and cold water.

  2. Boil until tender, about 20 minutes, then drain.

Finish the soup

  1. In another pot, boil the stock, add the vegetables, and boil uncovered for 30 minutes.

  2. Add cayenne pepper 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 body, sweetness and colour as they soften during cooking.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and a firmer texture to the vegetable base.
Celery
Contributes savoury aroma and a subtle herbal flavour to the broth.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, then drain. Cooking the vegetables fully in salted, sugared, acidified water softens their fibres so they blend into the soup evenly. Undercooked pieces stay firm and do not give the soup its intended texture.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Parsnipfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekthe original
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, sugar, vinegar, pepper, 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.

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