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Old Peas Soup

A hearty soup made with peas, meat stock, vegetables, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Old Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Save the water from boiling pork or beef; if it is too salty, dilute with fresh water or replace it entirely with fresh water.

  2. Simmer the water with roast beef bones, a ham bone, or anchovies and whole or split peas; use less water for better results.

  3. Simmer until the peas can be pushed through a colander.

Add the vegetables

  1. In another pot, cook the reserved liquid with carrots, turnip, leek, and celery until tender, about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup with fried bread, dried mint, pepper, and salt if desired.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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

Whole or split peas
Break down when simmered to thicken the soup and give it body.
Roast beef bones or ham bone or anchovy
Release flavour and savoury richness into the simmering liquid.
Carrots
Add sweetness and soft texture as they cook until tender.
Turnip
Adds subtle sweetness and body as it softens during cooking.
Leek
Contributes mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the base.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth and savoury background flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmering the peas until they can be pushed through a colander. Peas must be cooked fully soft so they break down and thicken the soup. Undercooked peas stay grainy and will not purée smoothly, leaving the texture thin and gritty.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, bread):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, 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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