Skip to main content
Main

Green Pea Soup

A soup made with green peas, ham, onions, butter, and milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, and sugar.

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

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine green peas, butter, diced ham, sliced onions, parsley, and cold water in a stewpan.

  2. Rub the mixture together with your hands.

  3. Pour off the water.

  4. Cover the stewpan.

Cook and strain

  1. Cook over high heat, stirring occasionally until very tender.

  2. Add flour and mix well while mashing the peas against the sides of the stewpan.

  3. Stir in stock, sugar, pepper, and salt.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into another stewpan.

Finish and serve

  1. Add boiling milk.

  2. Boil for another 5 minutes.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Serve in a tureen with croutons.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Green peas
Provide the main body and vegetable flavour of the soup once cooked and mashed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the peas and stock.
Stock or broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup, adding savoury depth.
Boiling milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the soup.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the soup base.

The step that matters

Cook over high heat, stirring occasionally until very tender. Peas must be fully softened so they break down and pass through the sieve smoothly. Stirring prevents sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, onion, parsley, flour, sugar, pepper):

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, onion, parsley, flour, sugar, 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes