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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, onions, celery, carrots, peppercorns, and butter, served with dried mint and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 split peas well in cold water.

  2. Put the peas into a saucepan with the sliced vegetables, peppercorns, and water.

  3. Bring to a boil and boil steadily for four hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the mixture through a sieve and return it to the saucepan.

  2. Season well with coarse sea salt and stir in the butter or dripping.

  3. Bring to a boil again and pour into a warm tureen.

  4. Serve with dried mint and fried bread.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Onion + celerytop 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 long simmering to thicken the soup into a smooth body.
Butter or dripping
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, building the base flavour.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour while breaking down into the soup.

The step that matters

Boil steadily for four hours. Split peas must cook long enough to soften fully and break down; a gentle simmer that stops early leaves them firm and grainy, while the soup needs enough liquid to stay covered as it reduces.

Swap the mint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, onion, celery, butter, carrot, 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.

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