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A Most Delicious Pea Soup

A pea soup with spinach, green onions, mint, celery, and reserved peas, simmered until jelly-like.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Most Delicious Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Melt the butter in a soup kettle over medium heat.

  2. Add the green peas and shake constantly for 15 minutes to prevent browning.

  3. Remove half the peas and set aside.

  4. Pour in the vegetable stock or boiling water.

  5. Add the spinach, green onions, mint, and celery.

  6. Let the mixture stew slowly for 2 hours until reduced to a jelly-like consistency.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the reserved peas, sweet butter rolled in flour, salt, and black pepper.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil, then pour into a hot soup tureen and serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Spinach + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Provide the main body, sweetness and flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the soup.
Spinach
Contributes color, soft vegetable texture and a mild earthy flavor.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth and body as it softens during stewing.
Vegetable stock
Supplies the liquid base that the vegetables simmer and reduce in.

The step that matters

Shaking the peas during the first 15 minutes. Constant shaking spreads the heat and fat evenly over the peas, so they soften and turn bright green rather than browning or scorching on the hot kettle base.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, peas, spinach, onion, celery, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, peas, spinach, onion, celery, 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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