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Green Pea-Soup

A hearty soup made with green peas, ham, onions, cabbage, spinach, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pea-Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a stew-pan.

  2. Add the ham, stock, green peas, onions, and cabbage lettuces.

  3. Simmer on low heat for 1 hour.

  4. Stir in 2 quarts of stock and the crumb of the French rolls.

  5. Boil for 1 hour.

Prepare the spinach and finish

  1. Blanch the spinach, strain it, and squeeze dry.

  2. Rub the soup through a fine sieve with the spinach for color.

  3. Boil the younger peas in 1 pint of stock until done.

  4. Add the stock and peas to the soup and a little sugar, then boil again.

  5. Add salt if desired.

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. Lettuce + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  3. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Cabbage + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together190 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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 sweet, vegetal flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor from the start of the cooking.
Onions
Build a sweet, savory aromatic base as they soften in the stock.
French rolls
Their crumb thickens the soup and gives it a smoother body.
Cabbage lettuces
Add mild vegetal flavor and extra body during the long simmer.
Spinach
Adds bright green color and a fresh, earthy note when rubbed through.

The step that matters

Rub the soup through a fine sieve with the spinach. Pushing the soup through a fine sieve removes fibrous bits and gives a smooth texture. Spinach must be blanched and squeezed dry first, so excess water does not thin the soup and the color stays vivid.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, sugar):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, sugar. 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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