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Soup

Old Peas Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, water, bones, celery, onions, and optional spinach or peas, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper 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 ↓

Old Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine split peas, water, roast beef or mutton bone, ham bone, celery, and onions in a large pot.

  2. Boil until the peas are soft enough to pass through a sieve, about 2-3 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the pot.

  4. Add pepper and coarse sea salt, then boil for nearly an hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in spinach or young green peas if using, just before serving.

  2. If celery is unavailable, add celery seed or essence of celery.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Celery + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 boiling to thicken the soup and give it body.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the stock as it simmers.
Onions
Build savory depth and sweetness as they cook into the stock.
Ham bone
Releases savory, salty flavor and richness into the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Boil until the peas are soft enough to pass through a sieve. Peas must fully break down for a smooth, thick texture. Undercooked peas stay grainy and will not strain through properly, so keep simmering until they are very soft.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, celery, onion, pepper, spinach. 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 pea soup recipes

Green 380Split 228Baked Split 20Creamed 13Dried 10Winter 9 See all 368 →

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