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Old-peas Soup

A hearty soup made with peas, vegetables, and meat stock, finished with fried bread and herbs.

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

Make the stock

  1. Save the water from boiled pork or beef. If the water is too salty, dilute with fresh water.

  2. Simmer the water with roast beef bones, ham or gammon bone, or anchovies. Add whole or split peas.

Cook the soup

  1. Simmer until the peas can be pulped through a colander, then set aside the pulp.

  2. Add more of the cooking liquid along with carrots, turnip, leek, and celery. Stew until all vegetables are tender, about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. In a tureen, combine fried bread, dried mint, pepper, and salt. Pour the soup into the tureen.

  2. 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

Whole or split peas
Break down when simmered to thicken the soup and give it body.
Roast beef bones, ham or gammon bone
Release savoury flavour into the cooking liquid, giving the stock its meaty base.
Carrots
Add sweetness and soft body to the soup as they stew until tender.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and soft texture to the stewed vegetables.
Leek
Contributes a mild onion-like aroma and softens into the soup.

The step that matters

Pulping the peas. The peas must be simmered until fully soft so they pass easily through a colander. Undercooked peas stay grainy and will not thicken the soup into a smooth purée.

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.

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