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Pea Soup and Pickled Pork

A hearty soup made from split peas, vegetables, and pickled pork belly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pea Soup and Pickled Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. If the pickled pork is too salty, soak it in water overnight.

  2. In a large pot, combine the pork and 3 quarts of water; boil gently for 2 hours. Add the pork to the pot and continue boiling for 1.5 to 2 hours until cooked through.

  3. Wash the cooked pork in hot water and serve it on a separate dish.

Make the soup

  1. For the soup, tie the split peas in a cloth and boil them in a separate pot for 1 hour, placing a plate underneath to prevent the cloth from touching the bottom.

  2. Once the peas are cooked, transfer them to a bowl, mash them, and mix with a ladleful of the soup, adding more soup gradually until well combined.

  3. Return the mixture to the pot, add grated carrot, sliced onion, spinach, sliced potatoes, and bacon or ham.

  4. Boil the mixture for an additional 30 minutes, seasoning with pepper and salt to taste.

  5. Strain the soup through a sieve, pressing the pea pulp with a wooden spoon, then return it to the pot and bring to a boil.

  6. Serve the soup hot, garnished with a sprinkle of dry 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  3. Spinach + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together870 recipes

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

  5. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickled pork belly
Provides savory, salty flavor and rich fat that enriches the broth.
Split peas
Break down during boiling and mashing to thicken the soup and give it body.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook and add starch that helps thicken the soup.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and color to the soup.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and savory depth as it cooks into the broth.

The step that matters

Mashing and blending the peas into the soup. Peas must be fully cooked before mashing, and adding the pea mixture gradually to the hot soup keeps it smooth and evenly thickened instead of lumpy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, carrot, onion, spinach, potato, ham, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, carrot, onion, spinach, potato, ham, 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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