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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, onions, turnip, and optional milk and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the split peas, onions, and turnip in the water until tender.

  2. Strain the mixture and rub it through a sieve.

  3. Return the strained mixture to the saucepan.

  4. Add pepper and salt to taste.

Finish

  1. If desired, stir in the milk and butter.

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 + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Peas + turniptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 thickening starch that make the soup thick.
Turnip
Adds mild, slightly sweet flavour and body to the soup base.
Onions
Build savoury aromatic flavour as they soften in the water.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour when stirred in at the end.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cooked mixture through a sieve. Pushing the tender solids through a sieve breaks them into fine particles, giving a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy and uneven.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, turnip, pepper, milk, 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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