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Cream of Pea Soup

A creamy soup made from dried peas, butter, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the peas overnight in plenty of water.

  2. In the morning, drain the peas and simmer them for 4 to 5 hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the peas and add enough milk to achieve a creamy consistency.

  2. Melt the butter and stir it into the puree along with salt and pepper.

  3. Cook for an additional 4 minutes and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried peas
Form the main body of the soup and thicken it into a purée once cooked and strained.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the purée to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Simmering the dried peas. Dried peas must be soaked and simmered long enough to soften fully; undercooked peas stay grainy and will not purée smoothly, so the texture of the soup depends on this step.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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