Name: A Baked Soup
Ingredients: 1 pound meat (any kind); 2 onions; 2 carrots; 2 ounces rice; 1 pint split peas (or whole peas if soaked); pepper to taste; salt to taste; 1 gallon water

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,555 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Baked Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the meat into slices.
Chop the onions and carrots.

Bake

In an earthen jug or pan, combine the meat, onions, carrots, rice, peas, pepper, and salt.
Pour in the gallon of water and cover tightly.
Bake alongside bread until cooked through.

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.

Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together21,601 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,477 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,994 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together10,433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas: Soften during long baking to thicken the soup and add body.
Rice: Absorbs liquid and softens, adding body and thickening the soup.
Meat: Releases flavor into the broth as it cooks slowly in the liquid.

Flavor stand-ins for the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, carrot, rice, pepper):

Beansbetter flavor fit
Sesamebetter flavor fit
Black-eyed peabetter flavor fit
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, carrot, rice, pepper. 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.