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Baked Soup

A hearty soup baked with meat, onions, carrots, peas, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Place a layer of meat slices at the bottom of an earthen jar.

  2. Add a layer of sliced onions.

  3. Add another layer of meat.

  4. Add sliced carrots.

  5. Add the soaked peas.

  6. Pour in the water.

  7. Seal the jar.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 3 to 4 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.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Onion + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  5. Meat + peastop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Supplies protein and savory flavor as it slowly cooks into the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they soften during baking.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the soup as they cook slowly.
Peas
Soaked beforehand so they soften fully and thicken the soup during long cooking.

The step that matters

Seal the jar. A tight seal traps steam and keeps the liquid from evaporating, so the soup cooks in its own moisture over the long bake.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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