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Pea Soup a LA Napier

A pea soup made with peas, salt pork, mint, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Pea Soup a LA Napier

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the peas and salt pork in water until the peas are tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve to create a smooth soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the cooked salt pork into small dice.

  2. Fry the diced salt pork until crispy.

  3. Serve the fried pork in the soup, garnished with cut mint.

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. Peas + porktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

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

  3. Pork + minttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together353 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

Peas
Form the body of the soup, thickening into a smooth purée when sieved.
Salt pork
Adds savoury fat and flavour to the broth, and crisped pieces give contrast in texture.

The step that matters

Frying the diced salt pork until crispy. Salt pork can burn before it renders and crisps if the heat is too high. Gentle, steady heat lets its fat render out so the pieces brown evenly and stay crisp rather than scorched or chewy.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, pork):

  1. Mintthe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, pork. 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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