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Green Pea Soup

A soup of lean beef, green peas, and rice flour, seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional sugar.

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

Why it works: Peas and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,434 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. 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.

  3. Add the beef and boil slowly for 1.5 hours.

Add the peas and thicken

  1. Half an hour before serving, remove the meat.

  2. Add the peas.

  3. Twenty minutes later, add the rice flour.

  4. Stir frequently to prevent burning.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar if desired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Adds savory meaty flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Green peas
Provide the main flavor and body of the soup as they soften.
Rice flour
Starch thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a fuller texture.

The step that matters

Stir frequently after adding the rice flour. Starch in rice flour settles on the bottom of the pot and can scorch or clump. Frequent stirring keeps it evenly dispersed, so it thickens smoothly without burning.

Swap the peas

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

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

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