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Old Peas Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, water, bones, celery, onions, and optional spinach or peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Old Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the soup

  1. Combine split peas and water with roast beef or mutton bone, ham bone, celery, and onions in a large pot, then bring to a boil.

  2. Cook until the peas are soft enough to pass through a sieve, about 2-3 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the pot.

Season and finish

  1. Add pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Boil for nearly an hour.

  3. Stir in spinach or young green peas just before serving.

  4. If desired, add celery seed or essence of celery for extra flavor.

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

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

  2. Celery + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 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.
Ham bone
Releases savory flavor and fat into the broth during the long simmer.
Onions
Build a sweet, aromatic base that rounds out the broth's flavor.
Celery
Adds aromatic, slightly bitter vegetable flavor that deepens the broth.

The step that matters

Cook until the peas are fully soft before straining. Split peas must break down completely to pass through a sieve. Peas that are undercooked stay firm and grainy, and the soup will not thicken smoothly.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, beef, ham, onion, pepper, spinach):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, beef, ham, onion, pepper, spinach. 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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