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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, vegetables, and bones, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Pea Soup

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 ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas in cold water to cover them for 12 hours, preferably overnight.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the soaked peas and 2 quarts of cold water. Bring to a boil.

  3. Wash, peel, and halve the onions and turnip. Wash and scrape the carrot clean. Trim the ends of the celery, wash it well.

Make the soup

  1. Once the water is boiling, add all the vegetables to the saucepan.

  2. Wash the bones and add them to the saucepan along with 4 teaspoons of coarse sea salt and 1 teaspoon of ground pepper.

  3. Let the mixture boil slowly for 2 hours, skimming occasionally.

  4. After 2 hours, remove the bones from the saucepan.

Strain

  1. Place a colander over a basin and pour the soup into it, using a wooden spoon to rub the contents through.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Turnip + carrottop 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. Celery + peppertop 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

Split peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften into the broth.
Bones
Release gelatin and flavour into the water, adding body and richness to the broth.

The step that matters

Let the mixture boil slowly for 2 hours, skimming occasionally. A gentle simmer lets the peas break down smoothly and extracts flavour from the bones without clouding the broth. A hard boil can scatter fine particles and make the soup cloudy. Skimming removes foam that would otherwise cook back into the soup.

Swap the peas

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

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

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