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Pea Soup

A soup made from green peas, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the peas.

  2. Wash the pods.

  3. Put the pods in a soup kettle with cold water.

  4. Boil until tender.

  5. Drain and discard the pods.

Cook and sieve

  1. Add the peas to the water.

  2. Boil for 45 minutes.

  3. Remove 1 cup of peas.

  4. Sieve the rest and return the sieved peas to the kettle.

Finish

  1. Add 3 pints of milk and the reserved cup of peas.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Rub the butter and flour together to form a smooth paste.

  4. Stir the paste into the soup.

  5. Add chopped parsley, salt, and pepper to taste.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 once sieved.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy, soft body to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated with the butter and liquid.

The step that matters

Stir the butter and flour paste into the soup. Flour clumps if it meets hot liquid unmixed. Working it into a smooth paste first, then stirring it into the simmering soup, lets the starch disperse evenly and thicken the soup without lumps.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, parsley, 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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