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Hessian Soup and Ragout

A hearty soup and ragout made from tongue, ox head, peas, root vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 24 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 ↓

Hessian Soup and Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Clean the tongue and ox head thoroughly.

  2. Soak them in plain water.

  3. Stew the tongue and ox head in 5-6 quarts of water until tender.

  4. Let the soup cool.

  5. Remove the fat that forms on top.

Make the soup

  1. Add split peas or whole peas, carrots, turnips, potatoes, onions, sweet herbs, and celery to the soup.

  2. Simmer the vegetables until tender.

  3. Puree the vegetables through a sieve until the soup is creamy.

  4. Season the soup with pepper, coarse sea salt, mace, pimento, ground cloves, and Cayenne pepper.

  5. Boil the soup in a slice of bread if it is not thick enough.

  6. Mix in rice flour gradually if still not thick enough.

Make the ragout and serve

  1. Cut the meat from the ox head and tongue into small pieces for the ragout.

  2. Rub the meat with seasoning.

  3. Simmer the meat in a quart of the reserved soup broth until tender.

  4. Add mushroom ketchup, walnut ketchup, soy sauce, port wine, and mustard to the ragout.

  5. Boil the ragout before serving.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox head
Gives the soup body and rich meaty flavour as it stews until tender.
Tongue
Adds rich, meaty flavour and tender meat for the ragout.
Split peas or whole peas
Cooked and pureed, they thicken the soup and give it a creamy texture.
Potatoes
Break down during cooking and help thicken the pureed soup.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock and soup.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, fruity depth and acidity to the finished ragout.

The step that matters

Puree the vegetables through a sieve until the soup is creamy. Pushing the cooked vegetables through a sieve breaks down their cell walls and starches, which gives the soup a smooth, creamy body rather than a grainy or watery one.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, carrot, turnip, potato, onion, celery, 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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