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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with dried split peas, vegetables, and a flour thickener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Pea Soup

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 ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the peas and soak them in water for 12 hours.

  2. Slice the vegetables.

Make the soup

  1. Put the peas into a pot with the bones (if using) and the stock, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the sliced vegetables to the pot when it boils.

  3. Simmer for at least 3 hours.

  4. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve.

  5. Return the strained mixture to the pot.

  6. Add the flour mixed with a little water.

  7. Boil until the puree is thoroughly incorporated.

  8. Season to taste.

Serve

  1. Place the dried mint in the serving bowl and pour the soup over it.

  2. Serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried split peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup into a smooth puree.
Flour
Mixed with water and boiled in to thicken the puree further.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and body as they soften into the stock.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the puree.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a wire sieve. Pushing the cooked peas and vegetables through a sieve breaks them into fine particles that give a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy.

Swap the mint

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

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

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

More pea soup recipes

Green 380Split 228Baked Split 20Creamed 13Dried 10Winter 9 See all 368 →

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