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Pea Soup on Boiling

A hearty soup made with split peas, stock, celery, onions, carrots, and turnips, simmered for 1.5 to 2 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Pea Soup on Boiling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the split peas overnight in cold water.

  2. Remove any bad peas that float to the top.

  3. Cook the peas in water until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Add the tender peas and their cooking water to the stock and chopped vegetables.

  2. Simmer the mixture for 1.5 to 2 hours until ready.

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 + carrottop 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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 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
Break down during simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Stock
Provides the main liquid and savory flavor base for the soup.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they simmer, adding depth to the flavor.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color while softening into the soup.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor and a subtle savory background.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor as they cook down.

The step that matters

Simmering the mixture. Simmering gently for the full 1.5 to 2 hours lets the peas and vegetables soften fully and break down. Cooking too hard can scorch the bottom or leave the peas unevenly cooked.

Swap the peas

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

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

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