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Cream Pea Soup

A creamy soup made from peas, onion, bay leaf, butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cream Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea stock

  1. Combine peas, onion, and bay leaf in a pot and stew together.

  2. Once done, strain through cheesecloth, crushing the peas but not pulping them.

Finish the soup

  1. Rub together butter and flour.

  2. Stir the mixture into warm milk.

  3. Add the milk mixture to the pea stock and cook for 10 minutes in a double boiler.

  4. Season 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Butter
Melts with the flour to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the milk and pea mixture, giving the soup a smooth, creamy body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and adds moisture and mild sweetness.
Green peas
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup once stewed and strained.

The step that matters

Adding the milk mixture to the pea stock. Flour thickens best when it is evenly dispersed first, so rubbing it with butter and stirring into warm milk avoids lumps. Cooking gently in a double boiler keeps the milk from scorching or curdling.

Swap the peas

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

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

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