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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, salt pork, beef bones, celery, onion, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine soaked peas, pork, bones, celery, onion, and cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer slowly for 3 hours until liquid is reduced by half.

  3. Strain through a colander, rubbing the peas into a thick puree.

Season and serve

  1. Season the puree with salt and pepper, then simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Serve the soup over the sliced lemon in a 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.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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 into a thick puree, giving the soup its body and texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries through the long simmer.
Beef bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the water, enriching the broth.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor to the simmering broth.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 3 hours. A gentle simmer lets the peas soften fully and the bones release flavor and gelatin without the liquid boiling hard. Too fast a boil can scorch the bottom or cloud the broth, and the peas may not break down properly for the puree.

Swap the peas

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

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

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