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Powder for Pea Soup

A dried herb and spice blend used to flavor pea soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 331 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Powder for Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine dried mint, dried sage, celery seed, and cayenne in a bowl.

  2. Pound and rub the mixture well through a fine sieve.

  3. Add allspice or black pepper if desired.

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. Sage + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

  2. Sage + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

  3. Mint + sagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together138 recipes

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

  4. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

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

  5. Mint + allspicetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together95 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried mint
Adds a cool, bright herbal aroma.
Dried sage
Adds a warm, earthy aroma.
Celery seed
Adds a savory, slightly bitter aroma.
Cayenne
Adds sharp heat from capsaicin.

Swap the allspice

The recipe marks allspice as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mint, sage, celery):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mint, sage, 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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