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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from green peas, milk, and cream or butter, served over croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Cover the peas with water and add a pinch of salt.

  2. Boil until tender, then skim the peas out.

  3. Rub the peas through a colander and return to the cooking water.

Finish and serve

  1. Add milk, cream or butter, and salt to taste.

  2. Serve the soup over croutons in a hot soup 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Cream + breadtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 and sweet, vegetal flavor of the soup once puréed.
Milk
Adds creamy liquid body and mild sweetness that softens the pea flavor.
Cream or butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil until tender. Overcooked peas turn dull and olive-coloured and lose their fresh flavor, while undercooked peas stay starchy and grainy, so they will not rub smoothly through the colander.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Lima beansfits about as well
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, 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.

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