Name: Pease Soup
Ingredients: bones from a joint of roast beef; liquor from boiled mutton, beef, pork, or poultry; 1 onion; 1 head of celery; 2 ounces fresh beef, mutton, or pork drippings; 2 ounces oatmeal; 3 quarts water; 2 pounds belly part of pickled pork (if not too salty)

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Pease Soup

Ingredients

bones from a joint of roast beef
liquor from boiled mutton, beef, pork, or poultry
1 onion
1 head of celery
2 ounces fresh beef, mutton, or pork drippings
2 ounces oatmeal
3 quarts water
2 pounds belly part of pickled pork (if not too salty)

Directions

Save the bones from a joint of roast beef and place them in the liquor from boiled meat.
Prepare the peas as for pease pudding, adding an onion and celery when rubbing through a sieve.
Add some of the pot liquor to achieve the right thickness and boil for five minutes.
For a savory soup without meat, mix drippings and oatmeal into the soup.
For pease soup with pickled pork, soak the pork in water overnight if too salty.
Boil the ingredients in three quarts of water for two hours, then add the pork and boil gently for another hour and a half to two hours.

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.

Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,373 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

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