Skip to main content
Main

Green Pea Soup

A soup made from canned peas, parsley, mint, sugar, salt, pepper, flour, butter, meat stock, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour the contents of a can of peas into a saucepan.

  2. Add 6 sprigs of parsley and several sprays of mint.

  3. Boil until the peas are broken and soft.

  4. Season with a little sugar, salt, and pepper to taste.

  5. Rub the mixture through a fine colander.

  6. Return the liquid to the fire.

  7. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour rubbed into 1 tablespoon of butter until thick.

  8. Add 2 cups of meat stock and bring to a boil.

  9. Remove from heat and serve with diced 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Break down into the body and thick texture of the soup when boiled and pressed.
Flour
Thickens the liquid when cooked with butter, giving the soup body.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form a roux, helping it thicken smoothly.
Meat stock
Adds savory depth and liquid to the soup.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and butter until thick. Flour rubbed into butter must be stirred into the hot liquid and kept moving so it dissolves without lumps, then thickens as it heats. Adding it cold or leaving it unstirred can cause clumping.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, parsley, sugar, pepper, flour, butter, meat):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Mintthe original

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes