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Cream Pea Soup

A warm soup of peas, onion, broth, milk, and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and sauté until translucent.

  3. Stir in the peas and vegetable broth, then bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Blend the soup until smooth, then return to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the milk, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat through and serve warm.

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

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

  3. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Green peas
Provide the main body of flavour and most of the soup's thickness once blended.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounded, rich mouthfeel and helps soften the onion.
Vegetable broth
Supplies the liquid that cooks the peas and carries the flavour through the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a softer, smoother texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the milk after blending. Milk added before heating can curdle or separate if it boils, so it is stirred in off the boil and only heated through gently.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, butter, 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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