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Green Pea-soup

A hearty soup made with lean beef, green peas, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and bread work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 804 recipes. Both carry hexyl acetate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Green Pea-soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the beef and water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil slowly and skim off any foam.

Prepare the peas

  1. In another pot, boil the green peas with salt and sugar until soft.

  2. Drain the peas and mash them in a colander until the pulp drips through.

Combine and serve

  1. Strain the beef soup and stir in the mashed peas.

  2. Cut the toasted bread into small squares and place in a tureen.

  3. Pour the soup over the toasted bread.

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. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  2. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Beef + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,044 recipes

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

  4. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 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

Lean beef
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers in the water.
Green peas
Provide the main body, colour and earthy flavour once mashed through into the soup.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam while the beef comes to a boil. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and can taint its flavour. Removing it early, while bringing the liquid up slowly, keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, bread. 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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