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Rich Peas Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked yellow split peas, brown gravy stock, onions, carrots, butter, celery, and optional curry powder.

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

Rich Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas and vegetables

  1. Drain the soaked peas.

  2. Place the peas in a large soup pot with the brown gravy stock.

  3. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

  4. In a separate pan, fry the onions and carrots in butter until tender.

  5. Add the fried vegetables to the soup.

  6. Simmer until the peas are reduced to a pulp.

  7. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  8. Boil for 2-3 minutes.

Strain and finish

  1. Pass the soup through a sieve.

  2. Press the vegetables to extract flavor.

  3. Return the strained soup to a clean saucepan.

  4. Add fresh stock if too thick.

  5. Boil quickly to reduce if too thin.

  6. Add sliced celery and cook until tender.

  7. Mix curry powder with a few spoonfuls of soup, then stir it in before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup hot with small fried sippets on the side.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  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

Yellow split peas
Break down into a pulp, giving the soup its body and thickness.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry in butter, adding savory depth to the soup.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color while softening into the soup base.
Butter
Carries the frying of the vegetables, adding richness and a rounded flavor.
Brown gravy stock
Provides the liquid and the main savory meat flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the peas are reduced to a pulp. Split peas must cook long enough to fully soften and break down, or the soup stays grainy and fails to thicken smoothly when strained.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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