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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, onions, turnip, carrot, celery, salt, pepper, and optional 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 for 12 hours, preferably overnight.

  2. Wash, peel, and halve the onions and turnip.

  3. Wash and scrape the carrot clean.

  4. Wash the celery and trim the ends.

Make the soup

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

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

  3. If using, wash the bones and add them to the saucepan along with the salt and pepper.

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

  5. 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 press the mixture 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 aromatic flavour as they soften in the broth.
Turnip
Adds subtle sweetness and earthy flavour to the soup base.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and colour to the soup as it cooks down.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savoury flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Boil slowly and skim during the 2-hour simmer. A gentle simmer keeps the peas breaking down evenly without scorching on the bottom. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would otherwise cloud the broth and taint its flavour.

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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