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Split Pea Soup Without Meat or Stock

A split pea soup made with peas, water, onion, milk, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup Without Meat or Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas overnight.

Make the soup

  1. Add the water and onion to the peas and simmer until completely melted.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the milk, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Strain if preferred and serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 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
Provide the main body and thickness as their starches and fibres break down during simmering.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and a mild sweetness as it softens in the simmering liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smoother, richer mouthfeel to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat that rounds out flavour and gives a silkier finish.

The step that matters

Simmering until the peas completely break down. Split peas only turn smooth when they are cooked long enough for their starches and fibres to soften and dissolve. Stopping early leaves a grainy texture, while simmering too hard can scorch the bottom of the pot.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, butter, 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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