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Rich Peas Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked yellow split peas, brown gravy stock, and vegetables, finished with celery and optional curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Rich Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Drain the soaked split peas and place them in a large soup pot with the brown gravy stock.

  2. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

  3. In a separate pan, fry the onions, carrots, and turnips in butter until tender.

  4. Add the fried vegetables to the soup and simmer until the peas are reduced to pulp.

  5. Season with salt and cayenne, then boil for 2-3 minutes.

  6. Pass the soup through a sieve, pressing the vegetables to extract flavor.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the strained soup to a clean saucepan, adding fresh stock if too thick.

  2. Boil quickly to reduce if too thin, then add the sliced celery.

  3. Once the celery is tender, serve the soup with small fried sippets.

  4. For added flavor, mix curry powder with a few spoons of soup and add it back when the soup begins to boil.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Yellow split peas
Break down into pulp to give the soup its body and thickness.
Brown gravy stock
Provides the liquid base and savory, meaty depth of the soup.
Onions
Fried in butter to build sweetness and savory aroma.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color, and thicken the soup as they soften.
Turnips
Add mild earthy sweetness and help thicken the soup when pureed.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the vegetables as they fry.

The step that matters

Pressing the strained soup through a sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables and peas forces soft solids through the mesh, creating a smooth, thick texture. Skipping this or using too coarse a sieve leaves the soup grainy and thin.

Swap the peas

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

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

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