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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, beef, salt pork, and fried bread pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick over the peas, wash, and soak them overnight in cold water.

  2. Scrape the pork clean and cut it and the beef into pieces.

  3. Drain the peas and put them with the cut meats into a pot with the water.

Cook the soup

  1. Cover the pot, heat gradually, and boil gently.

  2. Remove the scum as it rises; stir frequently to prevent scorching.

  3. When the peas are soft, take out the meats and mash the peas with a wooden masher.

  4. Put the meats back into the soup and complete boiling.

Serve

  1. Season lightly and dish the soup.

  2. Scatter fried bread pieces on the surface and serve quickly.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  5. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Break down when simmered and mashed, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Fresh lean beef
Releases savory flavor into the broth during long gentle simmering.
Salt pork
Adds fat and salty, savory flavor that carries through the soup.

The step that matters

Stir frequently to prevent scorching. Split peas are dense and starchy, so they settle and stick to the bottom of the pot. Stirring keeps them moving, and gentle heat keeps the soup from burning.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, pepper, bread):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, pepper, 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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