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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked peas simmered in beef broth, seasoned with salt and pepper, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the soaked peas in 2 quarts of water for 2 to 2½ hours.

  2. Add the peas to 3 to 4 quarts of beef broth and simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve to create a smooth soup.

  4. Reheat the soup as needed, season with salt and cayenne or black pepper.

  5. Skim off any scum before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried or toasted bread and optional stewed celery.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  4. Peas + celerytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the broth and give the soup its body.
Beef broth
Supplies the main liquid and savoury flavour for the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer gently. Gentle simmering softens the dried peas fully without scorching them on the bottom of the pot or breaking the soup into a cloudy, uneven texture.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, beef, pepper, bread):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, beef, 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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