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Hessian Soup

A hearty soup made from ox head, split peas, carrots, onions, turnips, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 and rub the ox's head with salt, then soak it in lukewarm water for 4-5 hours.

  2. Place the head in a large saucepan with 6 quarts of water and simmer until tender.

  3. Remove the head and let the broth cool, then skim off the fat.

Make the soup

  1. Return the broth to the saucepan and add the split peas, carrots, onions, turnips, celery seed, savory herbs, and mace.

  2. Simmer until the vegetables are tender.

  3. Press the mixture through a colander and then through a sieve.

  4. Add the pulp back into the soup, season with salt, Jamaica pepper, and sugar.

  5. Bring to a boil once more and 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 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

Ox's head
Provides the meat and gelatin that give the broth its body and richness.
Split peas
Break down during simmering and thicken the soup, adding body and texture.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body as they soften into the pulp.
Onions
Add savory depth and sweetness as they cook down into the broth.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add body and a mild, earthy sweetness.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after cooling. Fat from the head rises and solidifies as the broth cools. Removing it cleanly keeps the soup from tasting greasy and clear of floating fat.

Swap the mace

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

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

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