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Pea Soup with Croutons

A pea soup made with carrots, onions, suet, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pea Soup with Croutons

4 quarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the onion in chopped suet until brown.

  2. Wash the peas in cold water.

  3. Add the peas to the kettle with 4 quarts of cold water, salt, pepper, and carrot.

Simmer

  1. Simmer the soup slowly for about 2 hours, or until the peas are soft.

  2. Add ⅓ cup of cold water every 20 minutes during simmering.

Finish and serve

  1. Pass the soup through a sieve using a potato masher.

  2. Return the soup to heat.

  3. Add enough boiling water to make 4 quarts.

  4. If the soup settles, mix butter and flour into a smooth paste.

  5. Stir the butter‑flour paste into the soup to keep the peas suspended.

  6. Adjust seasoning.

  7. Fry the bread cubes in smoking hot drippings until brown.

  8. Drain the fried bread cubes on brown paper.

  9. Serve the soup with croutons.

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.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried peas
Form the body of the soup, thickening it as they break down during simmering.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, carrying the flavour of the fried onion through the soup.
Drippings
Fat for frying the bread, giving croutons browning and a savoury flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter paste so the soup stays smooth and the peas stay suspended.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the thickening paste stirred into the soup.
Stale bread
Dried bread cubes fried until brown to make crisp, toasty croutons.

The step that matters

Mixing the butter and flour into a smooth paste. Adding flour dry or unevenly makes lumps that do not disperse. Blending it first with butter lets the starch hydrate evenly, so it thickens the soup smoothly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, pepper, bread, butter, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, pepper, bread, butter, flour. 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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