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Rich Peas Soup

A thick soup made from soaked yellow split peas, brown gravy stock, and sautéed vegetables, served hot with fried sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 soup base

  1. Drain the soaked peas and place them in a large soup pot with the brown gravy stock.

  2. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

  3. In a skillet, fry the sliced onions, carrots, and turnips in butter until browned.

  4. Add the fried vegetables to the soup.

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

Strain and season

  1. Season with salt and cayenne.

  2. Boil for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Pass the soup through a sieve, pressing the vegetables through.

  4. Combine the strained soup with additional stock if too thick, or reduce by boiling if too thin.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sliced celery.

  2. Cook until tender.

  3. Mix curry powder with a few spoonfuls of soup. Stir it in before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 to thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter
Fat for frying the vegetables, adding richness and browning them for flavor.
Onions
Browned in butter, they add sweetness and savory depth to the base.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body once cooked and pressed through the sieve.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and body to the pureed soup.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable note and softens to a tender texture.

The step that matters

Pressing the soup through a sieve. The soup must be pushed through with the vegetables to give a smooth, thick texture. Skipping this leaves the soup grainy and thin, since the peas and vegetables hold most of the body.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, turnip, 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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