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Peas Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, bones, ham, vegetables, and spices, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the bones and place them in a pot with 4 quarts of cold water.

  2. Add 2-3 pounds of split peas, 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 6 small onions, celery, thyme, and whole peppers.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil for 4 hours, stirring frequently to prevent burning.

  2. Once the peas are soft, strain the soup through a sieve into another pot.

  3. Rub the pulp through the sieve to mix with the soup.

  4. Add salt dissolved in a little water and boil for a few more minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with small square pieces of toasted bread on the side.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Break down during long boiling to thicken the soup and give it body.
Marrow bone
Releases fat and gelatin into the water, adding richness and body to the broth.
Onions
Release sugars and aromatic compounds as they cook, adding sweetness and savory depth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color while softening into the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring during the 4-hour boil. Peas are starchy and settle on the bottom of the pot, where they scorch easily. Frequent stirring prevents burning and keeps the soup smooth and free of a bitter, burnt taste.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, thyme. 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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