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Spring Soup, Thick

A thick soup made from green split peas and assorted spring vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Soup, Thick

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup base

  1. Soak the green split peas in water.

  2. Boil the peas in stock until tender, about 1.5 to 2 hours.

  3. Add the chopped carrots, turnips, spring onions, parsley, thyme, leek, and celery to the pot.

  4. Once all vegetables are tender, rub the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Add additional stock to achieve a custard-like thickness.

  6. If the color is not vibrant, add spinach juice to enhance the green color.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate pot, boil the asparagus-tops, cabbage heart, and mint in a little water until bright.

  2. Just before serving, add the boiled vegetables to the soup.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Green split peas
Break down when boiled to thicken the soup into a smooth body.
Stock
Provides the liquid that cooks the peas and sets the final soup thickness.
Turnips
Add body and a mild sweetness as they soften into the purée.
Leek
Adds a gentle onion-like flavour that softens into the base.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the puréed soup.
Asparagus-tops
Add fresh green flavour and bright colour when boiled briefly.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a sieve. The vegetables must be fully tender first, or the purée will be grainy and thin. Pushing soft solids through a sieve breaks them into a smooth, thick texture.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, thyme, leek, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, thyme, leek, celery. 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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