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Soup X-LA-sap

A hearty soup of grated potatoes, beef, peas, onion, rice, and celery, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,019 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the grated potatoes, sliced beef, grey peas, onion, and rice in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a colander.

  3. Pulp the peas and return them to the saucepan with sliced celery.

  4. Stew until tender, then season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Potato + oniontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + beeftop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Potato + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Grey peas
Break down when pulped, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Grated potatoes
Break down during boiling, adding starch that thickens the broth.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, helping to thicken the soup.
Thinly sliced beef
Cooks in the broth, contributing savoury meaty flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, beef, onion, rice, celery, pepper, bread):

  1. Beansbetter flavor fit
  2. Peanutabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Sesameabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, beef, onion, rice, celery, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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