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Split-pea or Bean Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas or dried beans simmered with water, ham bone, and optional onion, finished with butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Split-pea or Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the split peas or dried beans overnight in 3 quarts of cold water.

  2. Drain the water.

  3. Place the soaked peas or beans in a saucepan with 2 quarts of water and a ham bone, if using.

Cook and finish

  1. Simmer for 4 to 5 hours, or until the peas or beans are soft, adding more water if necessary.

  2. Optionally, boil an onion with the peas or beans for added flavor.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Add enough stock or water to achieve a creamy consistency.

  5. Return the soup to the saucepan.

  6. Season with salt and pepper.

  7. Stir in the butter and flour until smooth.

  8. Serve with croutons.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas or dried beans
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they soften and break down.
Flour
Thickens the soup with the butter, giving it a smoother, more velvety body.
Butter or drippings
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving a smooth finish.

The step that matters

Simmer until fully soft. Peas and beans need long, gentle cooking to soften fully; stopping early leaves them grainy and hard to press through a sieve. Adding water as needed keeps the mixture from scorching and too thick.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, flour, butter, pepper, ham, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, flour, butter, pepper, ham, 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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