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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with soaked split peas, water, butter, salt, celery, onion, turnip, carrot, herbs, and peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Pea Soup

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 ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the butter in a saucepan. Add the peas and 1 pint of water to the saucepan.

  2. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Prepare and slice the vegetables. Add the sliced vegetables to the peas along with the seasonings.

  4. Boil for 1.5 hours.

  5. Pass the soup through a sieve, rubbing the vegetables through with a wooden spoon.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + carrottop 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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 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

Split peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the soup base.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and savoury depth to the soup.
Turnip
Adds earthy flavour and body as it cooks down into the soup.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour, and thickens when sieved.

The step that matters

Pass the soup through a sieve, rubbing the vegetables through with a wooden spoon.. Pressing the cooked vegetables and peas through a sieve breaks them into fine particles, which gives the soup a smooth, thick texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves it grainy and thin.

Swap the peas

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

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

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