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Green Pea Soup

A vegetable soup made with green peas, celery, mint, carrots, turnips, onions, parsley, lettuce, spinach, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine celery, mint, carrots, turnips, green onions, parsley, peas, lettuces, and spinach.

  2. Add the second stock and bring to a simmer.

  3. Cook until all vegetables are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve or tammy to create a smooth soup.

  2. If the soup is not a good green color, add a little spinach juice for color before serving.

  3. Season with sugar, coarse sea salt, and black pepper to taste.

  4. Serve with fried bread cubes on the side.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavour of the soup.
Stock
Supplies the liquid that carries the vegetables and dissolves their flavour into the soup.
Lettuces
Add soft leafy bulk and a mild, fresh flavour that thickens slightly when cooked.
Spinach
Contributes green colour and leafy flavour to the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body as they soften during simmering.
Turnips
Add mild sharpness and body that thickens the soup as they cook down.

The step that matters

Cook until all vegetables are tender. Vegetables must be fully soft before sieving, because undercooked pieces stay fibrous and will not purée smooth. Overcooking, especially of leafy greens, can dull the green colour.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, peas, lettuce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, peas, lettuce. 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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