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Split Pea Soup

A soup made from 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
Provide the bulk and body of the soup as they soften and break down during simmering.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour from the onion into the base.
Flour
Thickens the soup by absorbing liquid when cooked briefly in the butter.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mellow, rounded flavour to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. Flour must be cooked briefly in the fat before liquid is added, so its starch thickens smoothly and the raw floury taste cooks off. Stirring keeps it from scorching or clumping.

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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