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RuMFORD Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, carrots, turnips, rice, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

RuMFORD Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pot, combine double the amount of water you want for soup with split peas, carrots, and turnips.

  2. Let it simmer overnight over low heat.

  3. Strain the mixture the next morning.

Finish the soup

  1. Add rice, pepper, salt, celery, and any other vegetables.

  2. Simmer until all ingredients are 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. 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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

Split peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Carrots
Add sweetness and soft texture as they cook down into the broth.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and tender body to the simmered soup.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens, adding extra body to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmering overnight over low heat. Low, long heat lets the split peas break down gradually and release starch, thickening the soup without scorching. Straining afterward removes the fibrous skins and any unbroken material, so the final texture is smooth.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, rice, 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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