Skip to main content
Main

Gravy Soup

A soup made with lamb leg, turnips, peas, and potatoes, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turnip and potato work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 562 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the leg of lamb until tender.

  2. Add turnips, peas, and potatoes to the pot.

  3. Cook until all vegetables are tender.

  4. Serve hot as a soup.

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. Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + peastop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

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

  4. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Lamb + peastop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Provides the main meat and rich flavor that gives the broth its body.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a firm texture that holds up during simmering.
Peas
Add sweetness and a soft, tender texture to the soup.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking, thickening the broth slightly and adding body.

The step that matters

Cook until all vegetables are tender. Root vegetables like turnips and potatoes need enough simmering time to soften fully. Adding them to a pot that is still too cool, or stopping early, leaves them firm and starchy, while overcooking peas turns them mushy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, turnip, potato):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, turnip, potato. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes