Name: Dried or Split Pea Soup
Ingredients: 1 leg of mutton or calf's head stock; 1 head of celery, sliced; 1 carrot, sliced; 1 turnip, sliced; 2 onions, sliced; 1 cup dried or split peas; 1 crust of bread (size of a roll); coarse sea salt to taste; dried mint for serving

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 ↓

Dried or Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

Prepare stock by boiling the leg of mutton or calf's head.
If using pork stock, discard some if too salty and mix with fresh water.

Make the soup

Add celery, carrot, turnip, and onions to the boiling stock.
In a separate pot, boil peas in fresh water until they can be mashed.
Add the mashed peas and bread crust to the broth and boil for 1 hour.
Rub the mixture through a sieve and season to taste.

Serve

Serve with dried mint on the side.

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).
Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas: Break down when mashed to thicken the broth and give it a earthy, creamy body.
Mutton or calf's head stock: Gelatin and meaty flavor give the broth body and savoury depth.
Bread crust: Adds starch that helps thicken the soup as it simmers.
Onions: Build savoury, sweet aromatic flavour as they cook in the stock.
Carrot: Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the broth.
Celery: Contributes aromatic, vegetal flavour to the base.

The step that matters

Boiling the mashed peas and bread crust for 1 hour. Pea starch and bread settle and can scorch on the base of the pot during a long simmer, so the soup needs stirring and gentle heat to keep it from sticking and burning.

Swap the mint

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

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, celery, carrot, turnip, onion, peas, bread. 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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Dried or Split Pea Soup