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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. Combine water, soaked peas, salt pork, and lean beef in a large pot.

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

  3. Pour the mixture into a colander and press the peas through.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the pea puree 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. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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 puree that gives the soup its body.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Lean beef
Contributes savory meaty flavor to the broth.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavor to the finished soup.
Bread
Fried in butter until brown, it adds crisp texture and toasty, buttery flavor.

The step that matters

Press the peas through the colander. Pressing the softened peas forces them into a smooth puree that thickens the soup. Peas that are not soft enough will not pass through, so the cook should keep the soup boiling slowly until the peas are fully tender and the liquid has reduced.

Swap the peas

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

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

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