Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
Peas Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the peas overnight.
In the morning, cut the beef and bacon into pieces.
Make the soup
In a large soup pot, combine the drained peas, beef, bacon, and dried mint.
Add 5 quarts of water and boil gently for 3 hours, skimming as needed.
Add the celery or celery seed and continue boiling until the peas are dissolved and the celery is soft.
Serve
Strain the soup into a tureen and serve with toasted bread cubes, omitting the crust.
Stir the soup before serving to ensure even consistency.
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.
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Beef + porktop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
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Peas + minttop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,137 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Mint + celerytop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together334 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together804 recipes
Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).
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Peas + celerytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,832 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dried peas
- Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
- Beef
- Adds savory meaty flavor to the broth as it simmers.
- Bacon or pickled pork
- Adds smoky, salty fat that enriches the broth's flavor.
- Celery
- Softens during boiling and adds a fresh, aromatic vegetal flavor.
The step that matters
Boiling until the peas dissolve. Peas must simmer long enough for their starch to break down fully; stopping early leaves a grainy, unthickened soup. Gentle boiling with skimming keeps the broth clear and the texture smooth.
Swap the mint
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, beef, pork, celery, bread):
- Thymefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Pepperfits better
- Mintthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against peas, beef, pork, celery, bread. 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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