Name: Green Pea Soup
Ingredients: 1 cup fresh shelled peas; 2 cups boiling milk; 1 teaspoon butter; 1 teaspoon flour; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; 1 cup cream

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 ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cover peas with boiling water and boil for 10 minutes.
Add boiling milk, butter, and flour; season with salt and pepper.
Cover and bring to a boil.
Place in a cauldron without lifting the cover for 2 hours or more.
Strain through a sieve and add cream 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

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

Peas: Provide the main body and sweet, green flavor of the soup.
Milk: Adds creaminess and body to the liquid base of the soup.
Flour: Thickens the soup slightly, giving it a smoother texture.
Cream: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

Swap the peas

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

Almondfits better
Pistachiofits better
Chestnutfits better
Peasthe original

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