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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, vegetables, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the split peas in water until tender.

  2. Add turnips, carrot, celery, and potatoes; cook until tender.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve to create a smooth soup.

Finish and serve

  1. In a pan, fry the onion slices in butter and flour to thicken the soup.

  2. Season the soup with salt to taste.

  3. Serve with crispy fried bread.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 boiling to give the soup its body and thick texture.
Potatoes
Break down when cooked and add starch that thickens the soup smoothly.
Onion
Frying in butter builds a sweet, savoury aroma base for the soup.
Flour
Cooked with butter and onion to form a roux that thickens the soup.

The step that matters

Frying the onion in butter and flour. Flour must be cooked in the butter for a short time to remove its raw taste and prevent lumps when it thickens the soup.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, celery, potato, onion, butter, flour. 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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