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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, carrots, onions, turnips, herbs, parsley, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the split peas and soak them in water overnight.

Cook the soup

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the soaked peas, chopped carrots, onions, turnips, and herbs.

  2. Add enough water to cover the vegetables and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer until the peas are tender, about 1 hour.

Strain and serve

  1. Rub the mixture through a sieve or colander to remove solids.

  2. Return the liquid to the saucepan, boil for 10 minutes, and 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Split peas
Provide the main body and thickness of the soup as they break down during simmering.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color to the soup base.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma as they soften during cooking.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmering until the peas are tender. Split peas must cook long enough to soften fully; undercooked peas stay grainy and do not break down when rubbed through a sieve, leaving the soup thin and gritty.

Swap the peas

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

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

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