Name: Pease Soup
Ingredients: 1 head of celery; ½ ounce of onions; 2 tablespoons of butter; ½ teaspoon of ground black pepper; ½ pound of clean drippings or lard; bread (2 days old) cut into ¼ inch cubes; dried and powdered mint, savory, or sweet marjoram; optional: bacon or boiled pickled pork

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pease Soup

Ingredients

1 head of celery
½ ounce of onions
2 tablespoons of butter
½ teaspoon of ground black pepper
½ pound of clean drippings or lard
bread (2 days old) cut into ¼ inch cubes
dried and powdered mint, savory, or sweet marjoram
optional: bacon or boiled pickled pork

Directions

Slice the celery and onions, then fry them in butter until lightly browned.
Add the fried mixture to the soup pot with the peas and cook until tender, about 3 hours.
Pass the soup through a coarse sieve, then a fine sieve or tammis using a wooden spoon.
Return the soup to a clean pot, add black pepper, and boil for 10 minutes, skimming off any fat.
In a frying pan, heat the drippings or lard and fry the bread cubes until golden brown, turning carefully.
Drain the fried bread on paper and serve with the soup, garnished with herbs and optional bacon or pickled pork.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,372 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 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

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, onion, butter, pepper, bread, pork):

Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
Sagefits better
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, onion, butter, pepper, bread, pork. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.