Name: Ceeam Op Pea Soup
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon sugar; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 cups cold water; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 slices onion; ½ teaspoon pepper; 2 cups milk; ½ cup cream; 1 egg yolk

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Ceeam Op Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Drain peas and rinse thoroughly.
Add sugar, onion, and cold water; let simmer for 15 minutes.
Pass through a sieve, reheat, and thicken with butter and flour cooked together.
Scald milk and add to the mixture.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add cream and egg yolk just 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.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Arrowrootfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, pepper, milk, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.