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Common Peas Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, vegetables, and broth, finished with a flour thickener and served over fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Common Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the split peas and soak them in water.

  2. In a large pot, combine the peas, water, bacon or beef bones, chopped celery, and diced turnip.

Make the soup

  1. Boil until reduced to 2 quarts.

  2. Strain the mixture through a colander using a wooden spoon.

  3. Mix a little flour with water and add it to the soup, boiling well.

  4. Season with Cayenne pepper and salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Cut the bread into small dice, fry until light brown, and place in a serving dish.

  2. Pour the soup over the fried bread.

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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peas + turniptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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 boiling to give the soup its body and thick texture.
Flour
Mixed with water and boiled in, it thickens the soup further.
Bacon or beef bones
Release fat and savory flavor into the water as the soup simmers.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the soup base.
Turnip
Adds mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavor to the soup base.
Bread
Fried until light brown, it adds crisp texture and toasted flavor under the soup.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced to 2 quarts. Boiling concentrates the flavor and the soup must be reduced to the stated volume before straining. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery, while over-reducing makes it too thick and salty once seasoned.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, turnip, flour, pepper, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, turnip, flour, pepper, bread. 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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