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Split Pea Soup with Salt Pork

A hearty soup made from split peas, salt pork, and seasonings, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup with Salt Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the split peas, cover them with tepid water, add a pinch of baking soda, and let them soak overnight.

Cook

  1. In the morning, place the peas in a kettle with 3 quarts of cold water and add the sliced salt pork, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook slowly for 3 hours, stirring occasionally until the peas dissolve, adding boiling water as needed to maintain the quantity.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a colander.

  2. Serve with small squares of toasted bread; if desired, add a small piece of butter for richness.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  3. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Peas + porktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 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 into a smooth body.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the broth during the long cook.
Baking soda (in the method)
Raises the soaking water's alkalinity, helping the peas soften more quickly.

The step that matters

Cooking slowly until the peas dissolve. Gentle, long simmering lets the peas break down fully and release starch for a thick texture. Boiling hard can scorch the bottom and make the soup uneven, so stir occasionally and add boiling water to keep the volume steady.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, butter, bread):

  1. Lima beansfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Peanutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, butter, 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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