Name: Dried Split-pea Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart split peas, soaked overnight; 1 gallon water; 1 pound salt pork, cut into 1-inch pieces; ½ pound beef; 1 head celery, chopped; a little parsley; 3-4 slices stale bread, fried in butter until brown

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dried Split-pea Soup

Ingredients

1 quart split peas, soaked overnight
1 gallon water
1 pound salt pork, cut into 1-inch pieces
½ pound beef
1 head celery, chopped
a little parsley
3-4 slices stale bread, fried in butter until brown

Directions

Make the soup

Combine soaked split peas and water in a large pot.
Add salt pork and beef, then boil slowly for 2 hours until the volume reduces to about 2 quarts.
Pour the mixture into a colander and press through to extract the soup.
Return the soup to the pot and stir in chopped celery and parsley.

Serve

Cut the fried bread into small pieces and scatter on top of the soup 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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).
Peas + celerytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Salt pork: Adds fat and savoury flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Beef: Adds meaty flavour to the broth during the long simmer.
Celery: Contributes fresh, aromatic vegetable flavour to the finished soup.
Stale bread: Fried in butter until brown, it adds crisp texture and toasty flavour on top.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2 hours until reduced. A slow boil lets the peas soften and break down fully while the liquid reduces, which thickens the soup. Boiling too hard can scorch the bottom of the pot and cloud the flavour.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, celery, parsley, bread, butter):

Beansfits better
Walnutfits about as well
Chestnutfits about as well
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, celery, parsley, bread, butter. 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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Dried Split-pea Soup