Skip to main content
Main

Made Without Meat

A hearty split pea soup made with butter, onions, and water, served without meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,460 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Made Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a soup pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onions and fry until they are nicely browned, stirring constantly.

  3. Pour in the cold water and add the washed split peas.

  4. Bring to a boil and simmer for 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir with a potato masher and strain through a colander into a tureen.

  2. Serve tomato ketchup separately if desired.

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. Onion + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

  4. Onion + coffeetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together232 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coffeetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness to the pot, helping the onions brown and carrying flavour.
Onions
Browning them builds deep, sweet savoury flavour that colours the finished soup.
Split peas
Break down during long simmering, thickening the water into a smooth, hearty body.

The step that matters

Browning the onions. Onions must brown, not just soften, because the caramelised sugars and browned flavour carry through the whole soup. Stirring constantly prevents scorching and bitter notes.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, coffee):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, coffee. 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.

More split pea soup recipes

Baked 20Yellow 4 See all 228 →

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes