Name: Fried or Split-pea Soup
Ingredients: 1 leg of mutton or calf's head (for stock); 1 head of celery, sliced; 1 carrot, sliced; 1 turnip, sliced; 2 onions, sliced; fresh water; peas (quantity as desired)

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 ↓

Fried or Split-pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

Boil the stock made from the leg of mutton or calf's head.
Add the sliced celery, carrot, turnip, and onions to the boiling stock.

Cook and combine

In a separate pot, boil the peas in fresh water until tender.
Combine the cooked peas with the stock and vegetables.
Simmer for a few minutes to blend the flavors.

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.

Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + oniontop 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

Peas: Break down when cooked to thicken the soup and give it body.
Onions: Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the stock.
Celery: Contributes aromatic flavor and soft texture to the broth.
Carrot: Adds natural sweetness and color while softening in the stock.

Swap the peas

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

Lentilsfits better
Beansfits better
Chickpeafits better
Peasthe original

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