Skip to main content
Main

Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, water, onions, turnip, carrot, celery, salt, pepper, and optional bones, served with toasted bread.

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

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

  3. Wash and halve the onions and turnip, and scrape the carrot clean.

  4. Wash the celery, cut off the root ends, and add it to the saucepan along with the vegetables.

  5. If not using meat broth, add washed bones to the pot.

Cook and strain

  1. Season with salt and pepper, then boil slowly for 2 hours, skimming occasionally.

  2. Remove the bones and strain the soup through a colander or wire sieve into a basin.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup with toasted bread cut into dice.

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 savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the broth.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor to the base of the soup.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the simmered soup.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2 hours, skimming occasionally. A gentle simmer lets the peas soften fully and break down into the soup without scorching on the bottom. Skimming removes foam and loose impurities that would otherwise cloud the broth and affect its flavor.

Swap the peas

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

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

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

More pea soup recipes

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes