Name: Hessian Soup
Ingredients: 3 pounds shin of beef, sliced; 3 onions, chopped; 5 carrots, chopped; 8 potatoes, diced; 1¼ pints split peas; 3 heads celery, chopped; whole pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; 7 quarts water

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

In a large stewpan, combine the sliced beef, onions, carrots, potatoes, split peas, celery, whole pepper, and salt.
Gradually add the water and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer until the soup is reduced by half.

Serve

If serving as soup, strain out the vegetables; otherwise, serve with the vegetables included.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef: Releases flavour and gelatin into the broth, giving body as it simmers.
Split peas: Break down during simmering and thicken the soup.
Potatoes: Soften as they cook and add starch that gives body to the soup.

Swap the peas

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

Beansfits better
Chickpeafits better
Lentilsfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, potato, 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.