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Common Peas Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, beef broth, and optional celery, seasoned with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Common Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Wash the split peas well and remove any floating debris.

  2. Soak the peas overnight in water.

Cook the soup

  1. Boil the soaked peas with the baking soda in just enough water to mash them.

  2. Add the mashed peas to 3 to 4 quarts of beef broth and simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve and reheat as needed.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne or black pepper, skimming off any scum.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried or toasted bread, and add stewed celery for extra flavor if desired.

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

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  4. Peas + celerytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base and adds savory, meaty flavor.
Baking soda
Raises the pH, helping the peas soften and break down more quickly.

The step that matters

Simmering the mashed peas in broth. Simmering gently for the full hour lets the peas fully break down and thicken the soup. Boiling hard can scorch the bottom and make the texture uneven, and skimming keeps the broth clear.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, filbert, beef, pepper, bread):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, filbert, beef, pepper, 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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