Name: Old Pea Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart split peas; 2 heads celery; 4 leeks; 2 carrots; boiled pork or beef liquor; toasted bread; fresh mint

Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Old Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Save the liquor from boiled pork or beef.

Make the soup

In a pot, combine split peas, celery, leeks, and carrots with enough soft water to cover.
Simmer until the peas and vegetables can be puréed through a sieve.
Add the reserved meat liquor to achieve a proper thickness.

Serve

Serve with toasted bread cut into dice and finely rubbed mint.

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.

Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,310 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,093 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Peas + leektop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together249 recipes

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

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 simmering to give the soup its body and thick texture.
Leeks: Add aromatic sweetness and savoury flavour as they soften in the pot.
Celery: Adds aromatic, savoury flavour to the base as it simmers.
Carrots: Contribute gentle sweetness and help thicken the purée as they cook down.
Boiled pork or beef liquor: Adds meaty savour and adjusts the final consistency of the soup.

The step that matters

Simmering until the peas and vegetables can be puréed through a sieve. If the peas are not cooked fully soft, they will not pass through a sieve and the soup will be grainy. Starchy split peas need long, gentle simmering in enough liquid to break down completely.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, celery, leek, carrot, pork, bread):

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Parsleyfits better
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, celery, leek, carrot, pork, 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.