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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, beef, bacon or ham, celery, and bread cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the split peas overnight in soft water.

  2. In the morning, change the water to warm water.

  3. Drain the peas.

  4. Cover the peas with 4 quarts of cold water.

Make the soup

  1. Add the beef, bones, and celery to the pot.

  2. Boil the mixture slowly for 4 hours.

  3. Strain the soup through a colander.

  4. Discard the bones and meat shreds.

  5. Rub the peas and celery through the strainer until nothing more will pass.

  6. Season the soup with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  7. Add lemon juice to the soup.

  8. Return the soup to a rinsed kettle.

  9. Boil the soup together for 2 minutes.

  10. If the soup is too thin, add a little corn starch mixed with cold water.

Serve

  1. Place fried bread cubes in a heated tureen.

  2. Pour the soup over the bread cubes.

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.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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 peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Beef
Adds savory meaty flavor and richness to the broth as it simmers.
Bones
Release gelatin and marrow flavor into the broth, adding body and depth.
Lean bacon or ham
Adds smoky, salty savoriness that deepens the flavor of the soup.
Celery
Contributes aromatic vegetable flavor and, rubbed through, helps thicken the soup.
Corn starch (in the method)
Thickens the soup if it is too thin, as starch swells when heated.

The step that matters

Simmering the soup slowly for 4 hours. A gentle, slow boil lets the peas break down and the beef and bones release flavor without scorching or clouding the broth. Boiling too hard can cause the peas to scorch on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, celery, lemon, pepper, bread):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peasthe original
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Lentilsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, celery, lemon, pepper, 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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