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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, pork, onions, butter, flour, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Pick over the peas and soak them for several hours, then drain.

  2. Add cold water, pork, and onion to the peas.

Cook and finish

  1. Simmer for three to four hours, or until soft; then rub through a sieve.

  2. In a separate pan, cook butter and flour together, then add to the pea mixture.

  3. Stir in salt and pepper, and dilute with milk, adding more if necessary.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried split peas
Form the main body of the soup as they soften and break down into a thick purée.
Butter and flour
Cooked together they form a roux that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Milk
Dilutes the thickened purée, adding richness and a smoother, creamier texture.
Fat salt pork
Releases fat and savoury flavour into the water as it simmers with the peas.

The step that matters

Simmer until soft, then rub through a sieve. The peas must be fully tender before sieving; undercooked peas stay grainy and will not purée smoothly, leaving the soup gritty.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, onion, pepper, pork):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, onion, pepper, pork. 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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