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Split Pea Soup

A creamy soup made from soaked split peas, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Wash the split peas well and soak them in cold water for 24 hours.

  2. Bring fresh water to a boil and add the soaked peas.

  3. Cook until soft, adding water as needed.

  4. Mash the peas through a strainer.

Make the cream base

  1. Melt the butter in a separate pan.

  2. Stir in the flour and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Gradually add the milk until you achieve a thick, creamy consistency.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the strained peas with the creamed mixture.

  2. Cook together for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve with fried bread cubes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  5. Peas + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,309 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Flour and butter 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

Split peas
Form the main body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during cooking.
Butter
Carries flavor and enriches the texture of the cream base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, stable cream base.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the soup's body.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk to the flour and butter. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened cream base.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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