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Green Peas Soup Maigre

A light soup made with butter, peas, greens, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green Peas Soup Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a stew-pan.

  2. Mix in the boiling water and add the peas, green onion, spinach, green lettuce, salt, and allspice.

  3. Stew until the peas can be pulped.

  4. Strain the liquid into a pan.

  5. Pulp the peas and vegetables back into the liquid.

  6. Return to the heat and add nearly 1 quart more of young peas and the heart of a lettuce.

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. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

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

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 recipes

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

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Onion + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh butter
Melts to form a rich fat base that carries the flavour of the soup.
Young peas
Form the body of the soup; cooking softens them so they pulp into a thick texture.
Spinach
Adds green colour and a mild, earthy flavour to the soup.
Green lettuce
Contributes mild vegetal sweetness and softens into the pulped base.

The step that matters

Stew until the peas can be pulped. Peas must be cooked until fully tender before pulping; undercooked peas stay firm and grainy, and the soup will not become smooth or evenly thick.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, peas, onion, spinach, lettuce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, peas, onion, spinach, lettuce. 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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