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Cream of Pea Soup

A soup made from canned peas, onion, sugar, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings, simmered and thickened with a roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 of Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea base

  1. Drain peas.

  2. Add sugar and cold water.

  3. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Reheat the sieved mixture.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate pan, melt butter and mix with flour to create a roux.

  2. Add the roux to the pea mixture to thicken.

  3. Scald the milk with the onion.

  4. Remove the onion.

  5. Add the scalded milk to the pea mixture and stir well.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Peas
Provide the main body and pea flavour of the soup.
Butter
Enriches the roux, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup as the roux cooks with the butter and liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Adding the roux to the pea mixture. Flour thickens only when it is cooked in fat and then dispersed evenly in liquid. If the roux is added to hot liquid without stirring well, it can clump, leaving lumps in an otherwise smooth soup.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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