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Soup

Green Pea Soup

A soup made with beef, green peas, water, rice flour, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

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

  2. Strain out the pods and add the beef to the water.

  3. Boil slowly for 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Half an hour before serving, add the shelled peas.

  2. Twenty minutes later, add the rice flour, salt, pepper, and parsley.

  3. Stir frequently after adding the rice flour to prevent scorching.

  4. Strain into a hot tureen before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Adds savory flavor and body to the broth as it simmers.
Green peas
Provide the main flavor and color of the soup.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a fuller body.

The step that matters

Stir frequently after adding the rice flour. Starch settles on the bottom of a pot of thickening soup and can scorch quickly. Frequent stirring keeps the flour suspended, so it thickens evenly and does not taste burnt.

Swap the peas

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

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

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