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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from dried peas, water, onions, celery, carrot, turnips, pepper, salt, butter, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Make the soup

  1. Put the dried peas into the water and boil for 4 hours.

  2. Add the chopped onions, celery, carrot, and turnips.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

  4. Boil for 2 more hours, adding more water if the soup becomes too thick.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a colander.

  2. Stir in the cold butter.

  3. Serve hot with small pieces of toasted bread in the bottom of the tureen.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 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. Onion + turniptop 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

Dried peas
Break down during long boiling to give the soup its body and thickness.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften and release flavor into the broth.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor to the base as it simmers.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor as they cook down into the soup.
Cold butter
Stirred in at the end to add richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding water during the second boil. The soup thickens as the peas keep cooking and starch leaches out. Adding water when it gets too thick keeps the texture pourable and prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the peas

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

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

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