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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, onions, celery, carrots, peppercorns, and water, seasoned with salt and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 and cook

  1. Wash the peas well in cold water and place them in a saucepan with the sliced vegetables, peppercorns, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer steadily for four hours.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve and return it to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Season well with salt and stir in the butter or dripping.

  2. Bring to a boil again and pour into a warm tureen.

  3. Serve with dried mint and fried bread.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Peas + celerytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat that gives the finished soup a rounder, richer mouthfeel.
Onions
Release sweetness and savory aroma into the broth as they cook.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color while softening into the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer steadily for four hours. A steady simmer softens the split peas fully so they pass through the sieve smoothly. A hard boil can scorch the bottom and break the texture unevenly, while too gentle a heat may leave peas firm.

Swap the peas

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

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

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