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Puree of Split Peas

A creamy puree made from split peas simmered in stock, seasoned with onion, celery, carrot, and turnip, served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Puree of Split Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Crack the bones of the chicken, cover with water, and simmer gently for 4 hours.

  2. At the first boil, skim the surface. After 3 hours, add salt, onion, celery seed, carrot, turnip, bay leaf, and pepper.

  3. After 4 hours, strain the stock and remove the fat when cold.

Make the puree

  1. Soak split peas in cold water overnight. In the morning, wash and cover with 1 pint of water, then simmer for 2 hours.

  2. Press the peas through a colander, then add 1 cup of stock and press through a puree sieve.

  3. Add another cup of stock and return to heat.

  4. Rub together flour and butter, then stir into the puree until smooth.

Finish and serve

  1. Add salt, pepper, and grated onion. Boil gently for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Serve in a tureen with croutons.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Break down into a thick, smooth body that gives the puree its texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished puree.
Flour
Thickens the puree slightly when rubbed with butter and stirred in.
Grated onion
Adds sharp, savoury aroma that brightens the sweet earthiness of the peas.

The step that matters

Blend the flour and butter in smoothly. Rubbing flour with butter forms a paste that disperses evenly into hot liquid; added loose, it clumps and stays lumpy. Stirring constantly during the final gentle boil keeps the thickened puree from sticking and scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, celery, carrot, turnip, pepper, flour):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, celery, carrot, turnip, pepper, flour. 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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