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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, carrots, onions, celery, salt pork, and water, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas overnight in soft water.

  2. Wash the peas.

Make the soup

  1. Place the peas in a soup pot with the carrots, onions, celery, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 4 to 5 hours, adding boiling water as needed.

  3. Strain the soup through a coarse sieve.

Add the pork and finish

  1. Boil the salt pork in a separate pot for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the pork and skin it.

  3. Return the soup and pork to the pot and simmer gently for 1 hour, stirring frequently to prevent scorching.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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 savory fat and salty flavor that carries through the soup.
Onions
Build aromatic sweetness and flavor as they soften in the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer gently while stirring after returning the soup and pork. Peas and starches settle and scorch easily on the bottom of the pot at low heat over time. Frequent stirring keeps them from sticking and burning, which would give the soup a bitter, burnt taste.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, celery, pork):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, celery, pork. 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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