Skip to main content
Soup

Cream Pea Soup

A creamy soup made from soaked peas, potatoes, celery, milk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,047 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the dried peas overnight in water.

  2. In the morning, cook the peas in boiling water for 4-5 hours until very tender.

  3. Rub the cooked peas through a colander to remove the skins.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the sliced potatoes in a small amount of water until tender, then rub through a colander.

  2. Combine the sifted peas, prepared potatoes, and enough milk to make 3½ pints total.

  3. Return to the fire and add the celery; simmer for 10-15 minutes.

  4. Remove the celery, add salt to taste, and stir in the thin 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.

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. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Peas + celerytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Peas + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,309 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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 into a purée.
Potatoes
Add starch that gives the soup a smoother, thicker body.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and a soft, creamy mouthfeel.
Thin cream
Adds fat for richness and a silkier texture.
Celery
Contributes a mild, savoury aroma as it simmers in the soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the peas until very tender. Dried peas must cook long enough for their starches to fully soften; undercooked peas leave the purée grainy and stop it from passing smoothly through the colander.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, milk, cream):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, milk, 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.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesCream of Potato SoupCream of Potato Soup38 recipesCream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesMeatless Green Pea SoupMeatless Green Pea Soup22 recipes