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Soup From Split Peas

A hearty soup made with split peas, vegetables, and leftover meat, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Soup From Split Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In an earthen jug or pan, combine the soaked peas, pepper, and salt.

  2. Pour in 1 gallon of water and cover tightly.

  3. Bake alongside bread.

Build the soup

  1. Save the boiling water from cooked meat and add it to the soup.

  2. Add any leftover meat and bones to the pot.

  3. Chop the vegetables and add them to the soup after the peas have been pulped.

  4. Simmer until the soup is nutritious and flavorful.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Leek + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

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

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 thick body that gives the soup its main structure and texture.
Leftover meat
Adds savory flavor and richness to the broth as it cooks.
Vegetables
Contribute sweetness, aroma, and body as they soften in the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the vegetables after the peas are pulped. Peas need long, gentle cooking to break down and thicken the soup. Adding vegetables too early can make them overcook and turn mushy before the peas have finished softening, and it can leave the texture uneven.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, meat, ham, turnip, carrot, leek, potato):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, meat, ham, turnip, carrot, leek, potato. 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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