Skip to main content
Main

Bich Peas Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked yellow split peas, brown gravy stock, and sautéed vegetables, finished with celery and optional curry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Bich Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Drain the soaked peas and place them in a large soup pot with the brown gravy stock.

  2. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

  3. In a pan, fry the onions, carrots, and turnips in butter until browned.

  4. Add the fried vegetables to the soup.

  5. Simmer until the peas are reduced to pulp.

Season and strain

  1. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. Boil for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Pass the soup through a sieve.

  4. Press the vegetables to extract flavor.

  5. In a clean saucepan, add the strained soup.

  6. Adjust thickness with fresh stock if needed.

  7. Boil quickly to reduce if too thin.

  8. Add the sliced celery and cook until tender.

  9. Mix curry powder with a few spoons of soup.

  10. Add it back when the soup begins to boil.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup hot with small fried sippets on the side.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 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. Pepper + celerytop 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

Yellow split peas
Break down into pulp to give the soup its body and thickness.
Brown gravy stock
Provides the liquid base and savory depth of the soup.
Onions
Browned in butter, they add sweetness and savory aroma.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body once softened and pressed through the sieve.
Turnips
Add earthy flavor and body once browned and pressed through the sieve.
Celery
Adds a fresh, vegetal aroma and soft texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the peas are reduced to pulp. Split peas only thicken the soup once their starch breaks down fully. Stopping early leaves a thin, grainy soup, so the peas need enough gentle simmering time to soften completely before straining.

Swap the peas

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

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

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

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes