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Soup A-LA Sop

A hearty beef, potato, pea, and rice soup seasoned with mint, sage, celery, pepper, and salt, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,137 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and grate the potatoes.

  2. Cut up and wash the beef.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the beef, grated potatoes, and green peas in a pot.

  2. Wash the rice, then add the rice and chopped onion to the pot.

  3. Pour in the water and boil well.

  4. Strain the mixture through a colander or coarse cloth.

Finish and serve

  1. Mash the peas and return them to a saucepan with mint and celery.

  2. Stew until tender, then season with pepper and salt.

  3. Serve with fried pieces of bread called sippets.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Potato + oniontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

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

  4. Mint + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together138 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Potato + beeftop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides savoury meat flavour and body to the broth as it simmers.
Potatoes
Break down as they cook, thickening the soup and adding body.
Green peas
Mashed after straining, they add sweetness and thicken the soup further.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, adding thickness and a soft texture.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Stew until tender. The beef, potatoes and rice need enough gentle simmering to soften fully; undercooked meat stays tough and undercooked starch leaves the soup grainy.

Flavor stand-ins for the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, beef, peas, onion, rice, mint, celery):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Dillbetter flavor fit
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, beef, peas, onion, rice, mint, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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