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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, onions, turnip, carrot, celery, and optional bones, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 in cold water to cover for at least 3 hours or overnight.

  2. In a saucepan, bring 2 quarts of cold water to a boil.

  3. Wash, peel, and halve the onions and turnip.

  4. Wash and scrape the carrot clean.

  5. Cut off the ends of the celery root and wash it well.

Simmer

  1. Once the water is boiling, add all the vegetables.

  2. Add the bones (if using) and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Let it boil slowly for 2 hours, skimming occasionally.

Strain and serve

  1. Remove the bones from the saucepan.

  2. Pour the contents through a colander or wire sieve into a basin, rubbing through with a wooden spoon.

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

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour to the soup.
Celery root
Contributes savoury, aromatic flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Let it boil slowly for 2 hours, skimming occasionally. Gentle simmering lets the split peas soften fully and break down into the soup, while skimming removes foam and impurities that would otherwise cloud the flavour and texture. A hard boil can scorch the bottom and make the soup cloudy.

Swap the peas

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

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

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