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Pea Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas, onions, turnip, carrot, celery, and optional bones, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the split peas in cold water overnight.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the soaked peas and 2 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Wash, peel, and halve the onions and turnip.

  4. Wash and scrape the carrot clean.

  5. Cut off the ends of the celery and wash it well.

  6. Once the water is boiling, add all the vegetables.

  7. Add any bones you have and season with salt and pepper.

Cook and strain

  1. Let it boil slowly for 2 hours, skimming occasionally.

  2. After 2 hours, remove the bones from the saucepan.

  3. Pour the contents through a colander into a basin, rubbing the mixture through with a wooden spoon.

Serve

  1. Serve the pea soup with powdered dried mint and toasted bread cut into dice.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavour as they soften in the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour to the soup base.
Celery
Contributes savoury, aromatic flavour to the soup base.
Turnip
Adds subtle sweetness and body as it cooks down into the soup.

The step that matters

Skimming during the long simmer. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the soup boils, and skimming them off keeps the broth clean and clear-tasting. Boiling slowly rather than hard keeps the peas from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, turnip, carrot, celery, 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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