Why it works: Meat and peas work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 573 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Split Pea Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the stock
Pound the bones on a clean meat board using a small hatchet, breaking them.
Place the bones and cold meat trimmings in a large saucepan and cover with cold water.
Set on the back of the stove, cover closely, and simmer for four hours, skimming as needed.
After four hours, strain the liquid into a shallow pan and let it cool to remove fat.
Make the soup
An hour before serving, heat the strained stock.
Boil the soaked split peas in the stock for 2-3 hours until soft.
Rub the peas through a colander and mix with the stock.
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.
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Meat + peastop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together573 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Meat + coffeetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together173 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Coffee + peastop 24% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together70 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Split peas
- Break down when boiled and rubbed through, thickening the soup and giving it body.
- Bones of roast meat
- Release gelatin and flavour into the stock during long simmering.
The step that matters
Letting the stock cool before serving. Cooling the strained stock lets fat solidify on the surface so it can be removed, leaving a lighter soup. Skipping this leaves greasy liquid.
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, coffee):
- Cocoafits better
- Nutsfits better
- Walnutfits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, coffee. 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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