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Pea Soup

Pea soup made with green peas, lean salt pork, celery, onion, and pepper, simmered for four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the peas and pork in a pot with cold water.

  2. Add the pepper, celery, and onion.

  3. Cook for four hours until the soup is thick and smooth.

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

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

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  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

Green peas
Break down during long cooking to give the soup its body and thickness.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the soup.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, aromatic background flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Cooking for four hours until thick. Peas must simmer long enough to soften and break down fully; stopping early leaves the soup grainy and thin rather than smooth and thick.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, celery, onion, 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.

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