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Pea Soup

A simple pea soup with salt pork, onion, butter, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Parboil the peas in water with baking soda until tender.

  2. Wash the peas well.

  3. Place the peas in a pot with the salt pork.

Season and finish

  1. Season the soup with salt and pepper.

  2. Fry the onion in butter.

  3. Add dried bread crumbs just before serving.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Form the body of the soup, and their starch thickens the liquid as they soften.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, helping the peas soften faster.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory, smoky flavor to the cooking liquid.
Onion
Frying builds sweetness and aroma as its sugars brown slightly.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor from the fried onion into the soup.
Dried bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, thickening the soup slightly when stirred in.

The step that matters

Parboil the peas in water with baking soda until tender.. Baking soda makes the water alkaline, which speeds softening of the pea skins. Too much gives a soapy taste and mushy texture, so cook only until the peas are tender.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, onion, butter, bread. 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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