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Pea Soup

Pea soup made with dried peas, pork or ham bone, onions, herbs, salt, water, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Pea Soup

36 quarts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Combine dried peas, pork or ham bone, onions, savory, marjoram, thyme, white pepper, red pepper, coarse sea salt, and cold water in a large pot.

Cook overnight

  1. Place the pot in a 300°F (150°C) oven around 4:00 PM and change the lamp for a fresh one at 6:30 PM.

  2. In the morning, strain the soup and add water to bring the volume to 36 quarts.

Finish

  1. Mix the flour with water and stir it into the soup while stirring constantly.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Dried peas
Form the body of the soup as they soften and break down into a thick purée.
Pork or ham bone
Adds savory, meaty flavor and richness to the broth as it slowly simmers.
Onions
Contribute aromatic sweetness and depth of flavor as they cook down into the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and gelatinizes when heated in liquid.
Savory
Adds a peppery, herbal aroma that rounds out the pea flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the soup. Flour added without mixing it into water first, or stirred in unevenly, forms lumps of starch that stay raw inside. Constant stirring disperses the starch so it thickens the soup smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, pork, onion, marjoram, thyme, pepper, flour):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, pork, onion, marjoram, thyme, pepper, 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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