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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, pork, and vegetables, served with toasted bread dice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas in 1 quart of water overnight.

Cook the soup

  1. In the morning, add 5 quarts of water and the pork, onion, carrot, turnip, and celery if available.

  2. Boil for several hours until the peas are completely dissolved.

  3. Add coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. Strain the soup.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted bread dice.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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 boiling to thicken the soup and give it body.
Pork
Adds savory meaty flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Boil for several hours until the peas are completely dissolved. Peas need prolonged simmering to fully soften and break down; stopping early leaves the soup grainy and thin rather than smooth and thick.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, pork, onion, carrot, turnip, bread):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, pork, onion, carrot, turnip, 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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