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A Peas Soup for Winter

A hearty soup made with lean beef, bacon, split peas, and vegetables, finished with dried mint and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

A Peas Soup for Winter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine beef, bacon, and water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Add onions, turnips, carrot, celery, allspice, and split peas.

  4. Simmer gently for 3 hours.

  5. Strain the soup through a sieve, pressing the peas through to extract flavor.

  6. Return the soup to a clean pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Stir in dried mint.

  2. In a separate pot, boil diced celery and turnips in 1 quart of water for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the boiled vegetables.

  4. Add the boiled vegetables to the soup along with the fried bacon.

  5. Season with pepper and salt.

  6. Bring the soup to a boil for 15 minutes.

  7. Serve in a tureen with crispy fried bread.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Lean beef
Releases flavor and savory depth into the broth during long simmering.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savory fat and flavor to the broth and as a garnish.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic, vegetal flavor to the broth and diced pieces for texture.

The step that matters

Straining and pressing the peas. Pressing the cooked split peas through the sieve releases their starch and pulp, which thickens the soup. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup thin and grainy.

Swap the peas

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

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

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