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Cream Pea Soup

A soup made from soaked peas, potatoes, celery, and cream, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,047 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the dried peas in 1 quart of water overnight.

  2. Drain the peas and cook them in cold water until boiling. Skim carefully, cover, and simmer for 4-5 hours until tender.

  3. Rub the cooked peas through a colander to remove the skins, adding water if needed.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the sliced potatoes in a small amount of cold water until dissolved, then rub through a colander.

  2. Combine the potato mixture with the sifted peas and enough water or milk to make 3½ pints total.

  3. Add the celery pieces and simmer for 10-15 minutes to extract flavor.

  4. Remove the celery, stir in the cream, and season with salt to taste.

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. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  2. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Peas + celerytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried peas
Form the body of the soup as they break down and thicken when rubbed through.
Potatoes
Dissolve into the liquid, adding body and a smooth, thick texture to the soup.
Celery
Releases its flavor into the simmering liquid and is then removed.
Thin cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cooked peas through a colander. Pushing the peas through removes the tough skins, which would otherwise leave the soup grainy. Adding water as needed keeps the purée loose enough to pass through the colander.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, cream. 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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