Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Pea Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peas
Shell the peas and boil them separately from the pods.
Mash the peas and strain them through a colander.
Strain the water off the pods and mix it with the mashed peas.
Finish and serve
Just before serving, add the milk or cream, butter, and salt.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Peas + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,309 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,887 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Young green peas
- Provide the main body, flavour and bulk of the soup once mashed and strained.
- Milk or part cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the soup.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a silkier mouthfeel to the finished soup.
The step that matters
Adding the milk or cream just before serving. Dairy added to a boiling-hot soup can curdle or separate. Adding it at the end, with the soup kept hot but not boiling, keeps it smooth and creamy.
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg):
- Pecansfits better
- Cocoafits about as well
- Almondfits about as well
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg. 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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