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Hessian Soup

A hearty soup made from an ox head, split peas, and root vegetables, seasoned with mace, allspice, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Hessian Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the ox's head.

  2. Rub it with salt and water.

  3. Soak it in warm water for 5 hours.

Cook the soup

  1. Simmer the head in the water until tender.

  2. Remove it and let it cool.

  3. Skim off all the fat from the water.

  4. Add the chopped vegetables and soaked peas to the pot.

  5. Simmer until soft enough to pass through a sieve.

  6. Add the seasoning and pieces of the meat cut up.

  7. Bring to a boil.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox's head
Provides the meat and rich stock that give the soup its body and flavour.
Split peas
Break down during simmering to thicken the soup when passed through a sieve.
Potatoes
Soften and break down to add starch, thickening and body to the soup.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body as they soften into the puréed soup.
French roll crumb
Helps thicken the soup and adds body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off all the fat from the water. Fat left in the stock stays greasy and can make the finished soup heavy and unpleasant. Removing it after the head has cooled lets the fat solidify on the surface so it can be lifted off cleanly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, carrot, turnip, potato, onion, celery, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, carrot, turnip, potato, onion, celery, pepper. 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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