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Soup

Old-peas Soup

A hearty soup made with peas, bones, vegetables, and fried bread, seasoned with mint, pepper, and optional salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Old-peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Save the water from boiled pork or beef.

  2. If the water is too salty, dilute it with fresh water.

  3. Simmer the water with roast beef bones, ham bone, or anchovies and the peas until the peas can be pushed through a colander.

Make the soup

  1. Set aside the pea pulp and add more of the cooking liquid.

  2. Add the chopped carrots, turnip, leek, and celery to the pot and stew until tender, about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. In a tureen, combine the fried bread, dried mint, pepper, and salt if desired.

  2. Pour the soup into the tureen and serve.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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

Peas
Break down when simmered to thicken the soup into a smooth, body-rich purée.
Carrots
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and body to the soup.
Turnip
Softens during stewing and adds mild sweetness and earthy flavour.
Leek
Softens during stewing and adds gentle onion-like aroma.
Roast beef bones or ham bone
Release savoury flavour and gelatin into the simmering liquid, adding richness.

The step that matters

Simmering the peas until they can be pushed through a colander. The peas must be cooked long enough to fully soften; undercooked peas will not break down into a smooth pulp, leaving the soup grainy and thin.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, bread):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, 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.

More pea soup recipes

Green 380Split 228Baked Split 20Creamed 13Dried 10Winter 9 See all 368 →

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