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Pease Soup

A soup made from dried green peas, milk or cream, parsley, celery, onions, ham bone, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Pease Soup

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pease Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the peas for 5 to 6 hours, or heat them gradually in cold water until soft.

  2. Add the chopped onions, parsley, celery, and ham bone to the peas.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil until the peas are perfectly soft, adding cold water if needed.

  2. Remove the ham bone and press the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Add salt and pepper, return to heat, and stir in the milk or cream just 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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried green peas
Break down when boiled to thicken the soup into a smooth body.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a silky, mellow texture to the finished soup.
Ham bone
Releases savory flavor into the cooking water as it simmers with the peas.
Onions
Build aromatic sweetness and depth as they soften in the soup.

The step that matters

Boil until the peas are perfectly soft. Dried peas must cook fully to break down; undercooked peas stay firm and grainy, so the sieved soup will be coarse. Adding cold water if needed keeps the level sufficient while they soften.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, parsley, celery, pepper, onion, ham):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, parsley, celery, pepper, onion, ham. 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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