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Lumberman's Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with dried green peas, salt pork, onions, and herbs, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lumberman's Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and cook

  1. Wash the peas and soak them overnight in water to cover, then drain.

  2. Wash the salt pork, scrape the rind, and add it to the peas along with the onion and water.

  3. Simmer until the peas are tender, about 7 hours, replenishing water to keep about 2 quarts.

  4. If using a fireless cooker, use 2 quarts of water, set on a very hot radiator, and let stand overnight.

Finish and serve

  1. When the peas are tender, rub through a colander, add herbs, salt, and pepper to taste.

  2. Thicken with flour moistened with milk or water.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes and serve.

  4. If too thick, thin with hot milk.

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. Summer savory + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Flour + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Summer savory + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together299 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 green peas
Form the body of the soup as they soften and break down into a thick purée.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is stirred in and heated.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the soup base.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour moistened with milk or water. Flour lumps if added dry. Mixing it into a smooth liquid first lets the starch disperse evenly, so it thickens the soup without clumps.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pork, summer savory, onion, sage, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pork, summer savory, onion, sage, 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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