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Green Pea

A soup made with chicken, bacon, green peas, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,528 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pea

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the chicken, bacon, and water in an iron pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Boil for about 1 hour.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the green peas and cook for an additional 10-15 minutes.

  2. Strain the soup through a fine colander.

  3. Add thickening, salt, and black pepper to taste.

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.

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. Chicken + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,528 recipes

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

  2. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Simmers slowly, releasing flavour and body into the broth.
Bacon
Its fat and smoky flavour season the broth as it simmers.
Green peas
Soften as they cook, adding body, sweetness and green colour to the soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the green peas for 10-15 minutes. Peas are added to a hot broth and cooked only briefly. Overcooking breaks down their chlorophyll, turning the soup dull olive, and it can make the flavour taste muted and stale. Checking them early keeps the colour bright.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper. 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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