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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, bones, and vegetables, simmered slowly until the peas become a pulp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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. Wash the peas and soak them overnight in 2 quarts of cold water.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the soaked peas, soaking water, bones, salt, sugar, and dripping.

  3. Cut the onions, turnip, carrot, and celery into small squares.

Cook the soup

  1. Heat slowly, skimming off any scum before it boils.

  2. Add the vegetables to the soup when it boils.

  3. Simmer gently for about 2 hours, or until the peas are reduced to a pulp.

  4. Remove the bones and season to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve with powdered mint and squares of toast.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Break down into a pulp, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Bones
Release flavour and gelatin into the soaking water, enriching the broth.
Dripping
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the soup a richer mouthfeel.
Onions
Build savoury depth as they soften and sweeten during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds a little sweetness that rounds out the savoury flavours.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Foam rising before the liquid boils contains impurities that can cloud the soup and taint its flavour if left in. Skim it off as the pot heats.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Mintthe original

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