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Pea Soup, Economical

A hearty soup made with split peas, ham, celery, leek, onion, and bread croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pea Soup, Economical

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine chopped celery, leek, ham, and onion in a pot.

  2. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Pour in 3 quarts of corned-beef water or hot water.

  4. Add soaked split peas.

  5. Boil gently until peas are tender, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

  6. Add salt, pepper, and brown sugar.

  7. Remove from heat and strain through a sieve.

  8. Mix a few ounces of flour with cold milk and add to the soup.

  9. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Make the croutons and serve

  1. Dice the bread.

  2. Fry in hot fat until browned.

  3. Drain on a towel.

  4. Serve the soup with croutons added just before serving.

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 + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Leek + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together249 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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 simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Flour
Mixed with cold milk to thicken the soup and add body.
Milk
Adds richness and softness to the soup once blended with flour.
Ham
Adds savory, smoky flavor to the soup base.
Bread
Fried to brown pieces that add crisp texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring while the peas boil. Split peas are starchy and settle on the bottom of the pot, where they scorch easily. Constant stirring during gentle boiling prevents burning and lets the peas soften evenly into the soup.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, leek, ham, onion, beef, pepper, sugar):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, leek, ham, onion, beef, pepper, sugar. 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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