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Dried Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked yellow split peas, vegetables, and seasonings, served with fried bread cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Dried 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 ↓

Dried Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the yellow split peas overnight.

  2. The next morning, place the peas in a soup pot with 2 quarts of water and a pinch of baking soda.

  3. Add the chopped carrot, turnip, sliced onion, and chopped celery.

Cook and strain

  1. Cook until the vegetables are tender.

  2. Stir in the salt, pepper, and sugar.

  3. Strain the soup through a colander, pressing the vegetables to extract flavor.

  4. Return the strained soup to the pot and keep hot.

Serve

  1. Fry small cakes of bread in butter until brown and serve with the soup.

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

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

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Yellow split peas
Break down during cooking to give the soup its body and thickness.
Baking soda
Raises the cooking liquid's alkalinity, helping the peas soften more quickly.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth as it cooks down into the soup.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body as it softens and dissolves into the broth.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor and body as it cooks and breaks down.

The step that matters

Cook until the vegetables are tender. The peas and vegetables must soften fully so they break down into the broth. Undercooked split peas stay grainy and starchy, leaving the soup thin in body and rough in texture.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, celery, pepper, sugar, butter. 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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