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Split Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, pickled pork, onions, carrots, and water, seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas overnight.

Make the soup

  1. In the morning, combine the soaked peas and 4 quarts of water in a large pot with a little salt.

  2. Peel the onions and scrape the carrots.

  3. Add the onions, carrots, and pickled pork to the pot.

  4. Simmer until the peas are tender and the soup is thickened.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

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.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, savory flavor to the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavor as they cook into the soup.
Carrots
Add mild sweetness and color to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the peas are tender and the soup is thickened. Split peas need a long, gentle simmer to soften fully and release their starch, which thickens the soup. Stopping early leaves hard peas and a thin broth, while a hard boil can scorch the bottom of the pot.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, carrot, 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.

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