Skip to main content
Main

Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, vegetables, fried bread, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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. Soak the split peas in cold water for several hours.

  2. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat.

  3. Drain the peas and add them to the pot along with the onion and sliced vegetables. Stir for 5 minutes, ensuring they do not brown.

Make the soup

  1. Add the water, stir in the MARMITE, and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Let the soup simmer slowly until the peas are tender.

  4. Pass the soup through a sieve and reheat it.

  5. Add the fried bread and a little dried mint before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 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

Split peas
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when the vegetables are softened in it.
Onion
Builds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens with the other vegetables.
Marmite
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour to the soup base.

The step that matters

Stir the vegetables without browning them. Gently softening the onion and vegetables in butter builds sweetness and a clean flavour. Browning turns them bitter and dark, which changes the colour and taste of a pale pea soup.

Swap the peas

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

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

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