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Puree of Split Peas

A thick puree made from split peas, carrots, onions, celery, and butter, optionally flavored with Brussels sprouts or kale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Puree of Split Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and soak the split peas overnight.

  2. Drain the peas and place them in a pot with water, carrots, onions, and celery that has been fried in 1 ounce of butter for 10 minutes.

Cook and purée

  1. Simmer the mixture for about 3 hours until everything is soft.

  2. Strain and pound the vegetables and peas.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Incorporate the puree with the cooking liquid.

Finish

  1. Add the remaining butter, sugar, salt, white pepper, and grated mint.

  2. For a green version, add boiled and sieved Brussels sprouts or curly kale and a little fresh 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Provide the main body and thickness of the puree as they soften and break down.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished puree.
Onions
Build savory flavor when fried gently in butter before simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color while softening into the puree.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pushing the softened peas and vegetables through a fine sieve breaks down remaining fibers and skins, giving the smooth, even texture the puree depends on. Skipping or rushing this leaves a grainy result.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, carrot, onion, celery, butter, sugar, mint):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, carrot, onion, celery, butter, sugar, mint. 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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