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Soup

Gravy Soup Thickened with Yellow Peas

A thick soup made with beef, yellow peas, onions, and strong gravy, seasoned with pepper, sea salt, celery, and beet leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Gravy Soup Thickened with Yellow Peas

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the beef in a pot with water, peas, and onions.

  2. Boil gently until the meat releases its juices.

  3. Drain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Add the strong gravy to the drained liquid to make it brown.

  5. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  6. Add celery and beet leaves, and boil until tender.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Yellow peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Strong gravy
Adds savory depth and colour, browning the liquid.
Onions
Release sweetness and aroma into the broth as they cook.
Beef
Releases juices and flavour into the water during gentle boiling.

The step that matters

Boil gently until the meat releases its juices. Gentle simmering extracts flavour slowly from the beef without toughening it. A hard boil can make the meat tough and cloud the broth, so keep the liquid at a low simmer.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, pepper, celery):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, celery. 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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