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Pea Soup and Pickled Pork

A hearty soup made with split peas, pickled pork, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pea Soup and Pickled Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. If the pickled pork is too salty, soak it in water overnight.

  2. In a large pot, combine the pork and water; boil gently for 2 hours.

Cook the peas

  1. Add the split peas, tied in a cloth, to the pot.

  2. Boil for 1 hour.

  3. Place a plate in the pot to keep the cloth off the bottom.

  4. Once the peas are cooked, remove them from the pot.

  5. Bruise the peas well.

  6. Mix the peas with a ladleful of soup. Add more soup gradually until well combined.

  7. Return the mixture to the pot.

Add vegetables and finish

  1. Add grated carrot to the pot.

  2. Add sliced onion to the pot.

  3. Add sliced potatoes to the pot.

  4. Add bacon or ham to the pot.

  5. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

  6. Season with pepper to taste.

  7. Season with salt to taste.

  8. Strain the soup through a sieve.

  9. Work the pea pulp with a wooden spoon.

  10. Return the strained soup to the pot.

  11. Bring the soup to a boil.

  12. Serve the soup with a sprinkle of dry mint.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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
Break down into pulp to thicken the soup and give it body.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and add starch that helps thicken the soup.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour to the soup.

The step that matters

Bruise the peas well and work the pulp through the sieve. Split peas thicken the soup only when their starch-rich cells are fully broken down. Thorough mashing and sieving release that starch, so the soup turns smooth rather than grainy or thin.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, peas, carrot, onion, potato, ham, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, peas, carrot, onion, potato, ham, pepper. 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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