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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, beef bone, and vegetables.

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 turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas overnight.

  2. In a pot, place the beef bone and cover it with water.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises.

Cook the soup

  1. Boil the peas on low heat until soft.

  2. Mash the peas and add them to the soup.

  3. Slice the onions, carrot, and turnip, then add them to the soup about an hour before serving.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, and ensure the soup does not burn.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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 into a thick, starchy body that gives the soup its texture.
Beef bone
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, adding savoury depth and body.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding aromatic depth to the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour as it softens in the soup.
Turnip
Softens into the soup, adding mild sweetness and earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Keep the soup from burning. Split peas are dense and starchy and settle on the bottom of the pot, scorching easily. Stirring and keeping the heat low prevents a burnt taste that spoils the whole batch.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, carrot, turnip, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, turnip, pepper. 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.

More pea soup recipes

Green 380Split 228Baked Split 20Creamed 13Dried 10Winter 9 See all 368 →

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