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Pea Soup

Pea Soup made with peas, sugar, water, milk, onion, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and strain

  1. Cook peas in their liquid, adding sugar and cold water, for 20 minutes.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve and reheat.

Finish the soup

  1. Thicken the soup with butter and flour cooked together.

  2. Scald the milk with the onion.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
Form the main body and flavor of the soup once cooked and sieved.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flour to thicken the soup smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated in liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the earthy taste of peas.

The step that matters

Thicken with butter and flour cooked together. Cooking flour in butter before adding liquid helps it blend smoothly without lumps and removes the raw starch taste. The starch then thickens the soup evenly as it heats.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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