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Green Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with veal shin, green peas, onions, carrots, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the shin of veal in 4 quarts of water with onions, carrots, pepper, and salt for 4 hours.

  2. Add the green peas and boil for an additional 1.5 hours.

Finish

  1. Strain the soup through a sieve or soup-strainer.

  2. Stir in the butter and boil for 15 minutes.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of veal
Its connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, giving the soup body and a rich mouthfeel.
Green peas
They form the bulk of the soup, providing its main flavor, body, and green color.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the soup smoother and richer on the palate.
Onions
Release sweet, savory aromatics into the broth as they cook.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Add the green peas and boil for an additional 1.5 hours.. Long boiling breaks down the chlorophyll in green peas, which dulls their bright green color and can flatten their fresh flavor. Keep the boil steady and check the color as the soup cooks.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, carrot, pepper, butter. 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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