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Pur£e of Peas

A pea soup made with dried green peas, ham, vegetables, and mint, thickened with roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pur£e of Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried green peas overnight.

Cook the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the soaked peas, white stock, ham knuckle, mint, onion, carrot, spring onions, and chives.

  2. Boil until the peas are tender.

  3. Remove the ham knuckle and rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Season to taste and bring to a boil again.

  5. Thicken slightly with roux to prevent settling.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the ham into small dice and add it back to the soup.

  2. Serve 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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + chivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together419 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

Dried green peas
Provide the main body and starch that give the soup its thick, earthy texture.
Ham knuckle
Adds savoury, salty depth and smoky flavour to the stock as it simmers.
White stock
Serves as the liquid base that carries the flavour and dissolves the peas into soup.
Roux
Thickens the soup so the pureed solids stay suspended rather than settling.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Pushing the cooked peas and vegetables through a fine sieve breaks them down into a smooth purée. Skipping or rushing this leaves a grainy, uneven texture.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, ham, onion, carrot, chive):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, ham, onion, carrot, chive. 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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