Skip to main content
Main

Green Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with ham, butter, peas, onions, cabbage, spinach, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Lettuce and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Combine the ham, butter, 1 pint of stock, peas, chopped onions, and cabbage lettuces in a small soup pot.

  2. Simmer gently until the stock is nearly reduced.

  3. Add 2 quarts of good stock and the crumb of 2 French rolls.

  4. Boil gently for 1 hour.

Prepare the spinach and strain

  1. Boil the spinach, then strain the water.

  2. Press the spinach between two plates.

  3. Rub the soup through a fine sieve.

  4. Add the pressed spinach for color.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil the younger peas in 1 pint of good stock until done.

  2. Add the younger peas and their stock to the soup.

  3. Stir in a little sugar.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Add coarse sea salt if needed.

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. Lettuce + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  3. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together190 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 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

Peas
Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavor of the soup.
Lean ham
Adds savory, meaty flavor that deepens the soup's taste.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor from the aromatics into the soup.
French rolls
Their crumb acts as a thickener, giving the soup more body.
Onions
Build a savory aromatic base as they soften in the stock.
Spinach
Adds a bright green color to the soup.

The step that matters

Rubbing the soup through a fine sieve. Pushing the cooked solids through a fine sieve breaks them down and removes fibers, giving the soup a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, onion, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, sugar):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, onion, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes