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Cream of Green Pea Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled peas, milk, butter, flour, egg yolks, and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream of Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Boil the peas in 1 quart of water with 4 teaspoons of salt, 4 teaspoons of sugar, and a sprig of mint until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 2 ounces of butter in another pan.

  2. Stir in 2 ounces of flour.

  3. Add 2 pints of milk to the butter and flour mixture.

  4. Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.

  5. Beat the yolks of 2 eggs and add them to the mixture.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the cooked peas and their cooking liquid with the butter and milk mixture.

  2. Heat until very hot.

  3. Serve with croutons of fried bread.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Peas (in the method)
Provide the main body and green flavour of the soup once cooked and combined.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a smooth, body-giving base.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that gives the soup its smooth, rich texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Heat until very hot. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle if the mixture boils hard, so heat gently to keep the soup smooth.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg, bread):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg, 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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