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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, carrots, turnip, onion, stock, and dried mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas overnight in cold water.

  2. In a clean pan, combine the soaked peas and stock (do not use salted stock). If the water is very hard, add a small piece of baking soda.

Cook the soup

  1. Bring to a boil slowly. Once boiling, add the sliced vegetables.

  2. Simmer for at least three hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the mixture through a sieve or colander.

  2. Reheat the soup, then add seasoning and dried 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.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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, thickening into a smooth purée as they break down during simmering.
Onion
Adds savoury, aromatic depth to the soup base as it softens during cooking.
Carrot
Contributes gentle sweetness and colour, and body once puréed.
Turnip
Adds earthy flavour and body to the soup once puréed.

The step that matters

Simmering for at least three hours. Split peas must cook long enough to soften fully and break down; undercooked peas stay grainy and do not thicken the soup properly when rubbed through a sieve.

Swap the mint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, carrot, turnip, onion, 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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