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Old Peas Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, ham bone, celery, onions, and seasonings, finished with spinach or peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Old Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine split peas, water, ham bone, celery, and onions in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook until peas are soft enough to pass through a sieve.

  3. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the pot.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  5. Boil for nearly one hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Add washed and chopped spinach or young green peas before serving.

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

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

  2. Celery + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 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

Split peas
Break down during cooking to thicken the soup and give it body.
Ham bone
Releases savory flavor and richness into the cooking liquid.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the pot.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, vegetal flavor to the base of the soup.

The step that matters

Straining after the peas are soft. Peas must be cooked fully soft before straining, otherwise the sieve cannot push them through and the soup stays grainy and uneven in texture.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, celery, onion, pepper, spinach):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, celery, onion, pepper, spinach. 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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