Skip to main content
Main

Pease Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, vegetables, anchovies, and flavored with thyme, marjoram, and catsup, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Pease Soup

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Pease Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine split peas and water in a pot.

  2. Boil gently until peas are dissolved.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve and return the liquid to the pot.

Add vegetables and simmer

  1. Add carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, thyme, marjoram, onion, anchovies or herring, and peppercorns.

  2. Simmer until vegetables are tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a small bowl, mix butter and flour to form a paste.

  2. Stir the paste into the soup.

  3. Add catsup and salt to taste.

  4. Serve with fried bread squares 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.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 boiling to form the body and thickness of the soup.
Butter and flour paste
Thickens the soup as the flour starch swells in the hot liquid, adding body and richness.
Anchovies or red herring
Adds savory depth and umami to the broth.
Carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, and onion
Contribute sweetness, aroma, and body as they soften during simmering.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour paste into the soup. Adding the flour paste directly to hot liquid can form lumps because the starch clumps before it disperses. Mixing it smooth first and stirring well while adding it helps the soup thicken evenly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, leek, thyme, marjoram, onion):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, leek, thyme, marjoram, onion. 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.

More pea soup recipes

Green 380Split 228Baked Split 20Creamed 13Dried 10Winter 9 See all 368 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes