Skip to main content
Main

Green Pea Soup

A soup of green peas, beef bones, and corned beef liquor.

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

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the fat from the top of the corned beef liquor.

  2. Add the beef bones and any others you have.

  3. Boil gently for 1 hour, skimming often.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Make the soup

  1. Add 2 quarts of green peas, 1 minced onion, and a bunch of sweet herbs.

  2. Cook for 45 minutes.

  3. Rub through a colander to create a pulp.

  4. Add pepper to taste.

  5. Heat to a boil.

  6. Pour over diced fried bread in a tureen.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Provide the main body, colour and thick pulp of the soup once rubbed through.
Beef bones
Release gelatine and savoury flavour into the stock as they simmer.
Corned beef liquor
Supplies the salted, beefy base liquid in which the soup is built.
Fried bread
Adds crisp texture and fat-rich browning that contrasts with the smooth soup.

The step that matters

Rub through a colander to create a pulp. Pushing the cooked peas through a colander breaks down their cell walls and starch so the soup becomes smooth and thick rather than grainy. Leftover skins and fibre are held back by the colander.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, bread. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes