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Soup

Green Peas Soup, Without Meat

A soup of green peas pressed into a stock and combined with cucumber, lettuce, onion, parsley and mint cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Illustration of Green Peas Soup, Without MeatIllustration

Why it works: Peas and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 629 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the pea purée

  1. Boil the green peas tender in three quarts of water with salt and soda.

  2. Drain the peas and pound them in a mortar.

  3. Mix the peas gradually with five pints of the cooking liquor.

  4. Put the mixture over the fire and stew it gently for a quarter of an hour.

  5. Press the mixture through a hair-sieve.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Simmer the cucumbers, lettuce hearts, onions, parsley and mint in three to four ounces of butter over a gentle fire for nearly or quite an hour.

  2. Sprinkle the vegetables with half a teaspoonful of salt and white pepper or cayenne while they cook.

  3. When the vegetables are partially done, drain them from the butter.

  4. Put the drained vegetables into the strained stock.

  5. Boil the soup gently until all the butter has risen to the surface and been cleared off.

Finish and serve

  1. Add half to three quarters of a pint of young peas boiled as for eating.

  2. Serve the soup immediately.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

The picture is an illustration, not a photo of this recipe · 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Peas + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together629 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,409 recipes

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

  3. Peas + lettucetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,293 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,049 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,562 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the body and thick, smooth texture of the soup once pounded and strained.
Butter
Carries flavor and gives richness while the vegetables cook gently, then is skimmed off.
Lettuce hearts
Soften during gentle simmering and add delicate, sweet, vegetal flavor to the soup.
Cucumbers
Soften in butter and add a mild, fresh flavor to the finished soup.
Onions
Soften in butter and add savory depth to the soup base.

The step that matters

Skimming the butter off the soup. Butter that is not fully risen and cleared off leaves the soup greasy. Gentle boiling lets the fat separate to the surface so it can be removed.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Cauliflowerbetter flavor fit
  2. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  3. Beetrootbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, peas, cucumber, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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