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Swedish Cream of Green-pea Soup

A creamy Swedish soup made from green peas, stock, milk, egg yolks, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and peas 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 ↓

Swedish Cream of Green-pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea soup

  1. Boil the pea pods in weak stock with mint for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain out the pods and add the peas, sugar, and baking soda.

  3. Rub the peas through a colander to create a pulp.

  4. Thicken the pulp with white roux and season with pepper and salt.

  5. Keep the mixture hot while heating the milk in a saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. When the milk boils, gradually pour it into the egg yolks while whisking steadily.

  2. Do not cook the egg mixture in the soup; pour it into a tureen first.

  3. Then add the pea broth and top with croutons.

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. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 flavour and body of the soup once pulped.
White roux
Thickens the pulp so the soup becomes creamy rather than watery.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the cream when gently heated, adding richness and smoothness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the soup.
Weak stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the pea flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the egg yolks. Pour the hot milk into the yolks slowly while whisking so they warm gradually without scrambling. Egg proteins set at higher heat, so rushing this step can leave lumps. Keeping the egg mixture out of the boiling soup protects its smooth texture.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, sugar, pepper, milk, egg. 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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