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Hard Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, stock, celery, carrot, onion, and a pinch of curry or cayenne, served with crumbled toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Hard Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Wash the split peas and soak them overnight in water with a small piece of baking soda.

  2. Discard any floating peas and strain the soaked peas.

Cook the soup

  1. Place the peas in the stock and add celery, carrot, onion, and seasoning.

  2. Boil with a lid until everything is soft, skimming off any scum.

Strain and serve

  1. Carefully strain the soup into a warmed tureen, pressing the pulp through with a spoon.

  2. Serve hot, adding crumbled toast to the tureen before dishing.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Provide the main body and thickening, breaking down into a thick, smooth soup as they cook.
Stock
Supplies the liquid and savoury flavour that the peas cook and absorb.
Baking soda (in the method)
Softens the pea skins during soaking so the peas break down more readily.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the soup.

The step that matters

Boil with a lid until everything is soft. Gentle, covered simmering lets the peas soften fully and break down; a hard boil can scorch the bottom and leave the soup uneven, while undercooked peas stay grainy and resist straining.

Swap the peas

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

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

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