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Split Pea or Bean Soup

A hearty soup made from beans or split peas, simmered with ham or bone, onion, pepper, clove, and seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Split Pea or Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer

  1. Put the beans in 3 quarts of water and bring to a boil slowly.

  2. Add a bone or bit of ham, and the onion stuck with cloves.

  3. Let simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

Strain and serve

  1. Rub through a strainer and thicken with butter and flour.

  2. The soup will reduce to about 2 quarts.

  3. Season and serve with croutons of fried 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Beans + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together908 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Beans or split peas
Break down during long simmering to give the soup its body and thickness.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the strained soup as its starch swells in hot liquid, and butter adds richness.
Ham or bone
Releases savory flavor and fat into the water as it simmers.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness that deepens as it cooks in the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring while the soup simmers. Peas and their starches settle and scorch on the bottom of the pot during a three-hour simmer. Occasional stirring keeps the mixture moving, prevents burnt flavor, and keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter, flour, pepper, clove, ham, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, flour, pepper, clove, ham, 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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