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Pea Soup

A soup made with split peas, carrots, onions, celery, stock, salt, and pepper, served with toasted bread cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Soak the split peas.

Cook and strain

  1. Add the peas and chopped vegetables to the stock.

  2. Boil gently for 1 hour until the vegetables are soft.

  3. Press the mixture through a wire sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the mixture to the pot, add seasoning to taste, and simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Serve with toasted bread cubes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Stock
Provides the liquid base and most of the savory flavor of the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the broth.
Carrot
Adds mild sweetness and color while softening into the soup.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, herbal aroma that rounds out the vegetable flavor.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 1 hour until the vegetables are soft. A gentle simmer lets the split peas and vegetables break down evenly without scorching on the bottom of the pot. Boiling too hard can cloud the broth and leave the peas unevenly cooked, so the soup needs gentle heat for the full hour.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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