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Split Peas Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, salt pork, lean beef, celery, parsley, marjoram, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Split Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine water, soaked peas, salt pork, and lean beef.

  2. Boil slowly for 2 hours, or until the water is reduced by half.

  3. Pour the mixture through a colander.

  4. Press the peas through.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the soup to the pot and add chopped celery, parsley, and marjoram.

  2. Serve with fried bread pieces added to the soup.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

  4. Celery + marjoramtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together615 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries through the broth.
Lean beef
Contributes savory, meaty flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Celery
Adds fresh, aromatic vegetable flavor to the finished soup.
Bread
Fried in butter, it adds toasty richness and soaks up broth for texture.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the water is reduced by half. Slow simmering lets the peas soften fully and concentrates the broth. A hard boil can scorch the bottom of the pot and make the soup uneven, so keep the heat gentle and watch the liquid level.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, celery, parsley, marjoram, bread, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, celery, parsley, marjoram, bread, butter. 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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