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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup of split peas, salt pork, onion, and milk, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the cold water and salt pork. Bring to a boil.

  2. Add the chopped onion and white pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Stir in the split peas and cook until tender, about 1 hour.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a small bowl, mix the flour with a little water to make a paste. Stir this into the soup to thicken.

  2. Finally, add the milk and heat through before serving.

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. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  2. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Split peas (in the method)
Break down during simmering to give the soup its body and thickness.
Flour
Thickens the soup when mixed into a paste and stirred into the liquid.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture when heated through the soup.
Salt pork
Releases fat and savory flavor into the cooking water as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stir the flour paste into the soup. Flour must be mixed smoothly into a paste with water before it goes in, otherwise it clumps and does not thicken evenly. Stirring while adding it helps it disperse.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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