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Large Green Pea Soup

A soup made from large green peas, butter, onion, mint, salt, sugar, pepper, flour, milk, and water, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Large Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a pan, combine peas, butter, onion, mint, salt, sugar, pepper, and water.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until no moisture remains.

  3. Add flour and stir rapidly, breaking peas against the pan with a wooden spoon.

  4. Moisten with milk and water, then simmer for 20 minutes or longer if peas are old.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread on the side.

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 + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 flavor of the soup as they break down.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor during the initial cooking.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks into the peas and liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the peas until no moisture remains. Cooking low and stirring gently drives off water so the peas soften and concentrate in flavor without scorching. Rushing this step or using high heat risks burning the onion and peas on the pan bottom, which gives a bitter taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, mint, sugar, pepper, flour, milk. 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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