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Soup

Cream of Green Peas

A creamy soup made from boiled green peas, herbs, butter, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cream of Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Boil the green peas until tender.

  2. Pound the peas in a mortar and rub through a sieve, adding a little of their cooking liquid.

Make the cream

  1. In an earthenware saucepan, combine the pea mixture with melted butter.

  2. Add the bunch of herbs, salt, and white pepper.

  3. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture reaches a creamy consistency.

  4. Serve plain.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Peas + thymetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together575 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the soup and give it its flavour and thick texture once pureed.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cream a smooth, silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cooking over low heat while stirring constantly. Low heat and constant stirring keep the mixture from scorching on the base of the pan and help it thicken evenly into a smooth cream rather than a lumpy or burnt one.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, thyme, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, thyme, parsley. 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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