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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split or green peas, wood stock, onions, celery, pepper, salt, mushroom ketchup, and served with dry toast.

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 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

Prepare

  1. Soak the peas overnight.

  2. Prepare the wood stock.

Make the soup

  1. In a soup pot, combine the soaked peas, stock, onions, and celery (or celery seed).

  2. Simmer or boil slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve until smooth.

  4. Return the smooth soup to the pot.

  5. Add pepper, salt, and mushroom ketchup.

  6. Serve with small pieces of dry toast.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Peas + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 or green peas
Form the body of the soup, thickening into a smooth purée as they break down.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock as they cook.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 3 to 4 hours. Peas need prolonged gentle cooking to soften fully and release their starch, which thickens the soup. Boiling hard can break up the liquid unevenly and scorch the bottom of the pot, so keep the heat low and stir occasionally.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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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