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Dried Pea or Bean Soup

A soup made from dried peas or beans, onions, carrots, butter, parsley, salt, pepper, and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Dried Pea or Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the peas or beans overnight in cold water.

  2. Drain and cook in stock water until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Add the onion and carrots to the peas and cook until tender.

  2. Slice the carrots thinly.

  3. Remove the peas from heat and rub through a sieve.

  4. Stir in the butter, chopped parsley, salt, and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring to a boil and pour over the sliced carrots.

  2. Serve immediately with croutons.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried peas or beans
Starchy base that thickens the soup as it cooks and gives it body.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavour and smoother mouthfeel.
Onion
Softens as it cooks, building a savoury aroma into the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour, and contribute to the soup's body.

The step that matters

Cook the peas until fully tender before sieving. Peas that are not fully softened stay grainy and will not rub through a sieve into a smooth purée. Starch in the peas gelatinises as they cook, so thorough cooking gives a silkier, thicker soup.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, butter, parsley, 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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