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American Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with green peas, mutton, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

American Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the peas overnight.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the soaked peas, water, mutton, and bread soda.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add the chopped vegetables.

  3. Boil slowly until everything is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Sieve the mixture to remove solids.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then 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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Green peas
Main body of the soup, breaking down during long simmering to thicken it and give it flavor.
Bread soda
Raises the pH of the soaking and cooking liquid, helping the peas soften more quickly.
Neck of mutton
Provides meaty flavor and fat that enrich the broth.
Potatoes
Break down during simmering, adding starch that thickens the soup.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until everything is tender. A gentle simmer lets the peas and meat soften fully and release their starch and flavor, while a hard boil can scorch the bottom of the pot and break up the texture unevenly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, turnip, carrot, onion, potato, tomato, mutton):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, turnip, carrot, onion, potato, tomato, mutton. 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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