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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, salt pork, butter, and seasoning, served hot with whipped cream or parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large pot, combine the dry split peas and boiling water.

  2. Add the salt pork and boil slowly for three hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the salt pork and mash the peas until smooth.

  2. Stir in butter and seasoning to taste.

  3. Serve hot, adding a teaspoon of whipped cream or chopped parsley on each plate.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Peas + porktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Dry split peas
Form the body of the soup as they soften and break down into a thick purée.
Salt pork
Releases savory fat and flavor into the water during the long, slow simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the mashed soup.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for three hours. A gentle simmer lets the peas soften fully and release their starch evenly. A hard, fast boil can scorch the bottom of the pot and leave the peas unevenly cooked.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, pork, butter, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, pork, butter, cream. 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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