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Hard Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with split peas, ham stock, celery, carrot, onion, and a pinch of curry or cayenne, served with crumbled toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Hard Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the split peas overnight in water with a small piece of baking soda.

  2. Discard any floating peas and strain the soaked peas.

Make the soup

  1. Add the peas to the stock along with celery, carrot, onion, and seasoning.

  2. Boil with the lid on until everything is soft, skimming off any scum.

  3. Strain the soup into a warmed tureen, pressing the pulp through with a spoon.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, adding crumbled toast to the tureen before dishing.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Stock
Provides the savoury base liquid that carries the flavour of the soup.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the stock as it simmers.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the soup.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the soup.

The step that matters

Boil with the lid on until everything is soft, skimming off any scum. Split peas need a long, gentle simmer to fully break down and thicken the soup. Skimming removes foam that would otherwise cloud the broth and taint its flavour.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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