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Old Pease Soup

A hearty split pea soup simmered with meat bones, vegetables, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Old Pease Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Save the water from boiling pork or beef.

  2. If the water is too salty, dilute it with fresh water.

  3. Simmer the water with roast beef bones, ham or gammon-bone, or anchovies and peas.

  4. Use less water for better results.

  5. Simmer until peas can be pushed through a colander.

Make the soup

  1. Set aside the pea pulp.

  2. Add it back to the liquid with carrots, turnip, leek, and celery.

  3. Stew until all vegetables are tender, about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread, dried mint, pepper, and salt 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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

Whole or split peas
Break down when simmered to thicken the soup and give it body.
Roast beef bones
Release flavour and gelatin into the water, adding savoury depth to the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body as they soften during stewing.
Turnip
Adds earthy flavour and body as it becomes tender during stewing.
Leek
Contributes mild onion-like aroma and sweetness as it stews.

The step that matters

Use less water for better results. Too much liquid dilutes the flavour and keeps the peas from breaking down, so the soup stays thin. Reducing the water concentrates flavour and lets the peas soften enough to pass through a colander.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, 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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