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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from green peas, lard, milk, flour, onions, egg yolks, and cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

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

Make the soup base

  1. Heat the lard in a kettle.

  2. Add the green peas and stir until they are perfectly green.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add enough water to create soup.

  4. Boil for 45 minutes.

Add the thickening and onions

  1. Thicken the milk with flour and add it to the soup.

  2. Fry the chopped onions in butter until light brown, then add to the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the beaten egg yolks mixed with a little cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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

Green peas
Form the main body of the soup and give it its flavour and color.
Lard
Adds fat and richness to the base and helps carry flavour.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the soup when thickened with flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk so it blends smoothly and adds body to the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup gently, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Onions
Add aromatic savouriness, mellowed by frying until light brown.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks just before serving. Egg yolks set when they get hot, so they can curdle and turn grainy if the soup boils after they are added. Keep the soup hot but not boiling, and stir steadily as the yolks go in.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peasthe original

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

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