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Prussian Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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

Cook the soup

  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 liquid is reduced to 5 pints.

Strain

  1. 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 savory meaty flavor and substance to the broth as it simmers.
Split peas
Break down during cooking to thicken the soup and give it a creamy body.
Potatoes
Release starch as they cook, adding thickness and a soft, hearty texture.
Ground rice
Its starch thickens the liquid, giving the soup more body.
Leeks or onions
Build aromatic, mildly sweet flavor as they soften in the broth.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavor that underpins the soup.

The step that matters

Reducing the liquid to 5 pints. Reduction concentrates flavor and thickens the soup as starches from the peas, potatoes and rice dissolve. Stopping at the stated volume matters: over-reducing makes the soup too thick and salty, while under-reducing leaves it thin and watery.

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.

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