Skip to main content
Main

Pea-soup

A hearty soup made with dried peas, meat, barley, onions, salt, sugar, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Barley and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,166 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pea-soup

1 gallon of soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the peas in 3 pints of cold water for 12 hours.

  2. Simmer the meat in 5 pints of water for 3 hours.

Make the soup

  1. Place the soaked peas in a bag and boil with the meat for 1 hour.

  2. Press the contents of the bag into the broth, discarding the skins.

  3. Add salt, pepper, onions, and barley to the pot.

  4. Boil for 1 hour, adding water as needed to maintain 1 gallon of 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. Barley + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

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

  2. Peas + barleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together187 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  5. Barley + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the broth and give the soup its body.
Meat
Releases flavor and fat into the broth, giving the soup its savory base.
Pot barley
Swells as it cooks, adding body and a chewy texture to the soup.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth as they soften in the broth.

The step that matters

Pressing the peas through the bag into the broth. Pressing the softened peas through the bag pulls their starch and pulp into the liquid, thickening the soup, while the skins are kept out. Pressing too hard can tear the bag and let skins into the soup.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, barley, onion, sugar, 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.

More pea soup recipes

Green 380Split 228Baked Split 20Creamed 13Dried 10Winter 9 See all 368 →

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes