Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Pea Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the peas until very soft, then strain through a sieve to remove skins.
Add the cream, sugar, salt, pepper, and butter to the pea pulp.
Stir well and serve with wafers.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,331 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,887 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Peas
- Form the main body and flavour of the soup once boiled soft and strained.
- Cream
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
- Butter
- Adds fat that rounds out flavour and smooths the texture.
- Sugar
- Adds mild sweetness that balances the savoury peas.
The step that matters
Straining the peas through a sieve. Skins left in the pulp stay as small particles that make the soup grainy. Pressing the very soft peas through a sieve separates the smooth pulp from the skins, giving a silky texture.
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, pepper, butter):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, pepper, butter. 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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