Skip to main content
Main

Prussian Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, split peas, potatoes, ground rice, celery, leeks or onions, seasoned with pepper, sea salt, and dried mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Prussian Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 7 pints of water in a large pot.

  2. Add the beef, split peas, potatoes, ground rice, celery, and leeks or onions.

  3. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and dried mint.

  4. Cook until the mixture is reduced to 5 pints.

  5. Strain the soup through a colander.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Potato + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides meaty flavour and savoury body to the broth as it cooks.
Split peas
Break down during long simmering, thickening the soup and adding body.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook, adding starch that helps give the soup a thick texture.
Ground rice
Absorbs liquid and swells, further thickening the soup.
Leeks or onions
Add aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, peas, potato, rice, celery, leek, 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes