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Pea Soup, with Meat Stock

A split pea soup made with meat stock, onions, turnip, carrots, celery, cloves, and served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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, with Meat Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas overnight.

  2. Drain the peas and add them to a pot with the meat stock, onion, turnip, carrots, celery, salt, pepper, and cloves.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently to prevent sticking.

  2. Strain the soup through a fine strainer.

  3. Serve with toasted bread on the side.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 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
Provide the main body and thickening that gives the soup its texture.
Meat stock
Supplies the liquid base and savory flavor for the whole soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens into the broth.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color to the soup.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Split peas are starchy and settle quickly, so they can scorch and stick to the bottom of the pot. Frequent stirring keeps them suspended and cooking evenly.

Swap the peas

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

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

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