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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with onions, carrots, celery, split peas, mint, and brown sugar, simmered in water or broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, fry the onions, carrots, and celery in a little butter or dripping for 10 minutes.

  2. Pour in the water or broth and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the split peas and let the mixture simmer for nearly 3 hours, or until the peas are thoroughly cooked.

  4. Stir in the brown sugar, salt, pepper, and mint, and boil for an additional 5 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Onions
Softened by frying to build a sweet, savory base of flavor.
Carrots
Release natural sweetness as they cook, rounding out the soup's flavor.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory depth to the soup base.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a hint of molasses flavor that balances the vegetables.

The step that matters

Simmering the split peas. Split peas must cook long enough to soften fully; undercooked peas stay firm and grainy, and the gentle simmer keeps them from scorching on the bottom of the pot while they break down.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, peas, mint, sugar, pepper, meat):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, peas, mint, sugar, pepper, meat. 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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