Skip to main content
Main

Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, bacon, carrots, onions, dried mint, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Pea Soup

Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas in cold water for 12 hours.

  2. Fry the bacon in a saucepan.

  3. Peel and slice the onions and carrots, then fry them in the bacon fat.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add the soaked peas and the soaking water to the saucepan.

  2. Simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Rub the dried mint to a powder and add it along with the salt and pepper.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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.
Bacon
Its fat carries flavour into the onions and carrots and adds savoury depth.
Onions
Softened in bacon fat, they add sweetness and aromatic base flavour.
Carrots
Softened in bacon fat, they add natural sweetness and body to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer for 2 hours. Split peas must cook long enough to soften fully and break down; undercooked peas leave the soup grainy and thin. Keep the heat low so the soup does not scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, carrot, mint, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, carrot, mint, pepper. 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 →

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes