Name: Pea Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart split peas; 1 gallon water (plus additional boiling water as needed); 1 pound salt pork; toasted bread (for serving)

Why it works: Peas and bread work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 804 recipes. Both carry hexyl acetate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

1 quart split peas
1 gallon water (plus additional boiling water as needed)
1 pound salt pork
toasted bread (for serving)

Directions

Prepare the peas

Soak the split peas in a large quantity of water overnight.
Drain the soaked peas and boil them in 1 gallon of water.
Keep a kettle of boiling water on hand to add if the soup becomes too thick.
When the peas are very soft, pour them into a colander.
Rub the peas through the colander with a wooden spoon.
Wash the pot thoroughly to prevent burning.
Return the peas to the pot.
Boil the peas slowly over gentle heat until thickened.

Add the pork and season

In a separate kettle, boil the salt pork for 1 hour.
Add the boiled pork to the peas.
Let the mixture boil for another hour to season.

Serve

Serve the soup in a tureen with the pork on a dish and 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.

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.

Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).
Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,371 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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 boiling to thicken the soup into a smooth, body-rich purée.
Salt pork: Adds fat and savory flavor to the broth as it simmers with the peas.

The step that matters

Rubbing the peas through the colander. Starch and pulp must be pressed through fully while the peas are very soft; if they are firm, the purée stays grainy. Washing the pot before returning the peas helps prevent scorching on the base during the long simmer.