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Peas Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, stock, vegetables, and optional thickeners, served with bread and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the peas and soak them overnight in stock.

  2. Put the soaked peas in a pot with a bit of dripping and bring to a boil.

  3. Fry the vegetables in a little fat.

  4. Add the fried vegetables to the boiling liquid.

  5. Skim the surface.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook for about three hours until the soup can be passed through a sieve.

  2. Return the soup to the pan.

  3. Add the grated carrot and any desired thickening like sago.

  4. Boil for another half hour.

  5. Season to taste.

  6. Add a teaspoon of curry powder for each quart of soup.

  7. Serve with dried mint or sage and fried or toasted bread.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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 long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Stock
Provides the main liquid and carries flavour into the peas as they soak and cook.
Vegetables
Add sweetness and aromatic flavour as they cook down into the base.
Dripping
Fat that carries flavour when the peas and vegetables are fried and started.
Sago
Adds thickening starch that gives the soup a slightly fuller texture.

The step that matters

Cook for about three hours until the soup can be passed through a sieve. Split peas need a long, steady simmer to fully soften and break down. Stopping early leaves the soup grainy and hard to pass through a sieve, so it will not reach a smooth, thick texture.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, pepper, mint, bread):

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, pepper, mint, bread. 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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