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Split-pea Ok Bean Soup

A hearty soup made from split peas or dried beans, simmered with optional ham bone and onion, thickened with a butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Split-pea Ok Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the split peas or beans overnight in 3 quarts of cold water.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the soaked peas or beans with 2 quarts of water and the ham bone, if using.

  3. Optionally, boil an onion with the peas or beans for added flavor.

  4. Simmer for 4 to 5 hours, adding more water as needed, until the peas or beans are soft.

Finish the soup

  1. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Add enough stock, milk, or water to achieve a creamy consistency.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Add a roux made from 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon flour cooked together.

  6. Dilute the roux with a little of the soup before adding it to the pot to keep the particles suspended.

  7. Serve with croutons on top or 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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Split peas or dried beans
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during long simmering.
Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness and mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the soup and gives it a smooth body.

The step that matters

Adding the roux. Flour clumps if added raw or undiluted. Diluting the roux with some hot soup first and cooking it through helps the particles disperse evenly, giving a smooth, thickened result instead of lumps.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, sugar, flour, pepper, ham):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, sugar, flour, pepper, ham. 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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