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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from peas, lettuce, butter, flour, and seasonings, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Wash and shell the peas.

  2. Boil the pods in 3 pints of water with a little salt until soft.

  3. Rub the boiled pods through a sieve.

  4. Stir the pulp into the water used for boiling the pods.

Make the soup

  1. Add the chopped lettuce and peas.

  2. Boil together for 30 minutes.

  3. Melt the butter in another pan.

  4. Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper.

  5. Pour the pea mixture into the pan.

  6. Stir until it thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve with small squares of toasted bread.

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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup, with the pods adding more pea flavour to the stock.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the soup a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter, giving it a creamy body.
Lettuce
Adds soft, mild vegetable body and a gentle sweetness as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and butter into the pea mixture. Flour needs fat to be mixed in smoothly; if it is added in clumps or the liquid is not stirred, lumps form. Stirring until the soup thickens lets the starch swell evenly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, butter, flour, pepper, bread):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, butter, flour, 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.

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