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Split Pea Soup

A soup made from split peas, onion, butter, flour, milk, and optional ham bone.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Wash the split peas and soak them overnight in 1 pint of cold water.

  2. In the morning, drain and rinse the peas thoroughly.

Cook and strain

  1. Add 1½ quarts of cold water and the chopped onion to the peas.

  2. Cook slowly until the peas are soft, then sieve through a strainer.

  3. For added flavor, cook a small ham bone with the peas.

Finish the soup

  1. Make a white sauce and add the strained liquid to it, cooking until the desired consistency is reached.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Break down during long cooking to thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter
Enriches the white sauce and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a white sauce that gives body to the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the white sauce base.

The step that matters

Cooking the white sauce with the strained liquid. Flour must be cooked with the butter and liquid long enough to swell and thicken evenly. Stopping early can leave a raw, pasty taste or lumps, and cooking too long can make it too stiff.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, pepper, milk. 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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