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Green-pea Soup

A soup made from green peas, onion, stock or water, butter, flour, cream, milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Green-pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Cover the green peas with hot water.

  2. Boil the peas with the onion until they mash easily, about 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Mash the peas.

  4. Add the stock or water.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate pan, cook the butter and flour together until smooth but not brown.

  2. Add the butter and flour mixture to the peas.

  3. Stir in the cream and milk.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Let the soup boil once.

  6. Strain the soup.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup, adding whipped cream just before serving.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Green peas
Form the main body and flavor of the soup when boiled and mashed.
Butter
Carries flavor and, cooked with flour, forms a roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the soup smoothly.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the soup.
Milk
Adds moisture and mild sweetness, softening the soup's body.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter and flour until smooth but not brown. Flour must be cooked in fat to remove its raw taste and to swell evenly, so the roux thickens without lumps. Browning would change the colour and flavour of the soup.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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