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Turnip and Pea-Soup

A soup made with turnips, peas, broth, onion, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turnip and Pea-Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté the onion until translucent.

  2. Add the diced turnips and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until turnips are tender, about 15 minutes.

  4. Add the peas and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

  5. Blend the soup until smooth, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Turnip + peastop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Turnips
Provide the main body of the soup and become soft and mild as they simmer.
Peas
Add sweetness and a bright green colour, softening into the soup as it cooks.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that cooks the vegetables and carries their flavour.
Onion
Builds a savoury, aromatic base as it softens in the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the onion at the start of cooking.

The step that matters

Blend the soup until smooth. Blending breaks down the cell walls of the cooked turnips and peas so the soup turns silky. Blending too early, before the turnips are fully tender, leaves a gritty texture.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, chicken, onion, butter, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, chicken, onion, butter, pepper. 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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