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Cream of Pea Soup

A creamy soup made from cooked peas, milk, butter, and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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. If using canned peas, drain and rinse them well.

  2. Press the peas through a colander or vegetable press, heating them first for easier pressing.

Make the soup

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk until scalded.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub together the butter and flour.

  3. Add the butter and flour mixture to the scalded milk, then season with salt and pepper.

  4. Finally, stir in the strained peas and heat thoroughly before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Provide the main flavor and body of the soup once pressed smooth.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps form the thickening roux with flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the soup becomes smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture to the scalded milk. Flour must be cooked in fat and whisked into hot liquid to avoid lumps; if the mixture is added too fast or unmixed, lumps form and the soup turns grainy and uneven.

Swap the white pepper

The recipe marks white pepper as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, milk, butter, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, milk, butter, flour. 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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