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Green Pea Soup

A soup made with veal, young and boiled green peas, optionally flavored with mint and sugar.

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

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 ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the veal and water in a soup kettle.

  2. Boil moderately and skim well.

  3. Once the meat is tender, strain it out.

Thicken and finish

  1. Add 1 quart of young green peas to the broth.

  2. Boil the peas until dissolved and the soup thickens, turning green.

  3. In another pot, prepare 2 quarts of boiled green peas.

  4. If desired, add the mint and sugar.

  5. After 20 minutes, remove the mint.

  6. Add the whole peas to the soup.

  7. Boil together for 10 minutes.

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

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

  2. Veal + peastop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Veal + minttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Young green peas
Break down during boiling to dissolve into the broth, thickening the soup and turning it green.
Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the water as it simmers, giving the broth body.
Boiled green peas
Stay whole in the finished soup, adding texture and fresh pea flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the peas until dissolved and the soup thickens. Peas must cook long enough for their starch to swell and break down; stopping early leaves a thin, grainy soup, while the green color develops as chlorophyll is heated.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, peas, sugar):

  1. Mintthe original
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, peas, sugar. 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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