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Winter Peas Soup

A stew of lettuce, cucumber, peas, onion, and parsley simmered with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Winter Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Combine the inside of the lettuces, cucumbers, young peas, onion, and parsley in a stewpan.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and black pepper, then cover the stewpan.

  3. Stew gently for 2 hours, shaking the pan frequently without opening the lid.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil some younger peas until tender, then rub them through a colander.

  2. Add the pulp to the stew.

  3. The next day, add another ½ pint of young peas.

  4. Add enough pea water to achieve your desired thickness.

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 + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Lettuce + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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

Cos lettuces
Breaks down during slow stewing to give the soup its body and green flavour.
Cucumbers
Soften during stewing, adding moisture and a light, fresh flavour to the soup.
Young peas
Provide sweetness and body, especially when mashed into the soup as pulp.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewed vegetables.

The step that matters

Stew gently with the lid on. Gentle heat with a covered pan lets the vegetables soften in their own moisture without scorching. Lifting the lid lets steam escape and can concentrate or burn the soup, so the pan is shaken instead.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, cucumber, onion, parsley, butter, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, cucumber, onion, parsley, butter, 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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