Skip to main content
Main

Rich Peas Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, brown gravy stock, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Prepare the peas

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

  2. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

Make the vegetable base

  1. In a separate pan, fry the onions, carrots, and turnips in butter until browned.

  2. Add the fried vegetables to the soup.

  3. Simmer until the peas are reduced to pulp.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  5. Boil for 2-3 minutes.

Strain and finish

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

  2. Return the strained soup to a clean saucepan.

  3. Add fresh stock if the soup is too thick.

  4. Boil quickly to reduce if the soup is too thin.

  5. Add the sliced celery and cook until tender.

  6. Serve the soup hot with small fried or toasted snippets.

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.
Onions
Browning in butter builds savory, sweet depth of flavor.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color as they soften and brown in butter.
Turnips
Contribute a mild, slightly sharp flavor and soft body to the vegetable base.
Butter
Fat that carries flavor and helps the vegetables brown in the pan.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable note as it cooks until tender.

The step that matters

Simmer until the peas are reduced to pulp. Split peas only thicken the soup once their starch breaks down fully during long simmering. Stopping early leaves a grainy, thin texture, while the sieve step can only remove what has already softened.

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.

More split pea soup recipes

Baked 20Yellow 4 See all 228 →

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes