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Geeen Pea Soup

A soup made with green peas, lean beef, and rice flour, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,434 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Geeen Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Boil the empty pods of the peas in the water for 1 hour.

  2. Strain out the pods and add the beef.

Cook the soup

  1. Boil slowly for 1.5 hours.

  2. Half an hour before serving, strain out the meat and add the peas.

Finish and serve

  1. Twenty minutes later, add the rice flour, salt, pepper, and sugar if desired.

  2. Stir frequently after adding the rice to prevent burning.

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. Peas + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Releases meaty flavor and richness into the broth as it simmers.
Green peas
Provide the main body, bulk, and sweet vegetal flavor of the soup.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated.

The step that matters

Stir frequently after adding the rice. Starch thickeners settle and stick to the bottom of the pot when heated, so they can scorch. Frequent stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed, which gives a smooth texture and prevents a burnt taste.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, rice, flour, pepper, sugar):

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, rice, flour, pepper, sugar. 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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