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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, onion, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

  1. Rinse the split peas and soak them in water for a few hours.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté the chopped onion until translucent.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Add the soaked peas and enough water to cover them.

  4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until peas are tender.

  5. Stir in the milk and season to taste before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Form the main body of the soup and thicken it as they break down while simmering.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavor and adds richness to the base.
Flour
Cooked briefly in the butter to form a roux that helps thicken the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavor of the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmering until the peas are tender. Split peas need a long, gentle simmer to soften fully. Adding milk or seasoning too early, or boiling hard, can leave the texture uneven or the peas unevenly cooked.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, 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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