Name: Dried or Split Pea Soup
Ingredients: liquor from boiled leg of mutton or calf's head (or pork stock, diluted with water if too salty); 1 head of celery, sliced; 1 carrot, sliced; 1 turnip, sliced; 2 onions, sliced; 1 cup dried peas; 1 crust of bread, the size of a roll; dried mint, for serving

Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Dried or Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

liquor from boiled leg of mutton or calf's head (or pork stock, diluted with water if too salty)
1 head of celery, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
1 turnip, sliced
2 onions, sliced
1 cup dried peas
1 crust of bread, the size of a roll
dried mint, for serving

Directions

Prepare the soup base

Bring the stock to a boil.
Add the sliced celery, carrot, turnip, and onions.

Cook the peas

In a separate pot, boil the dried peas in fresh water until they mash easily.

Combine and finish

Add the mashed peas and the crust of bread to the broth.
Let the soup boil for 30 minutes, then strain through a sieve.
Season to taste and serve with dried mint.

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.

Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + oniontop 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

Dried peas: Break down when boiled to thicken the soup and give it body.
Celery: Adds savory aromatic flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Onions: Build savory sweetness and depth as they soften in the broth.
Crust of bread: Soaks up liquid and helps thicken the soup as it boils.

The step that matters

Mashing the peas until soft. Dried peas must be cooked until they break down easily; undercooked peas stay hard and grainy, so the soup will not thicken smoothly when strained.

Swap the mint

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

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, celery, carrot, turnip, onion, peas, 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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Dried or Split Pea Soup