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Pea Soup in the Common Way

A hearty split pea soup with celery, turnips, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pea Soup in the Common Way

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Put the split peas and water in a large pot with the roast beef bones or bacon.

  2. Add the chopped celery and turnips.

  3. Boil gently until reduced to 2 quarts.

  4. Strain the mixture through a colander using a wooden spoon.

  5. Mix flour with a little water and add to the soup, then boil.

  6. Add another head of celery, cayenne pepper, and salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Fry the diced bread until light brown and place in a serving dish.

  2. Pour the soup over the fried bread 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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during boiling.
Roast beef bones or lean bacon
Add savory meaty flavor to the water as the soup simmers.
Celery
Adds aromatic, vegetal flavor to the soup base.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it boils.
Bread
Soaks up soup and adds contrast through browning when fried.

The step that matters

Boil gently until reduced to 2 quarts. Boiling too hard can scorch the peas on the bottom of the pot and make the soup cloudy or uneven. Gentle simmering reduces the liquid evenly while the peas break down into a smooth base.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, turnip, flour, pepper, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, turnip, flour, pepper, bread. 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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