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Dried Green Peas Soup

A soup made from dried green peas simmered with water, spinach juice, lettuce, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and lettuce 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 ↓

Dried Green Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine split green peas and water in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer.

  3. Cook until the peas can pass through a colander, about 1–2 hours.

  4. Mix spinach juice and chopped lettuce in a separate bowl.

  5. Add the spinach mixture to the cooked peas.

  6. Season with salt and pepper to taste before serving.

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. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 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

Split green peas
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Lettuce
Contributes leafy flavor and some green color to the soup.

The step that matters

Cook until the peas can pass through a colander. The peas must be fully softened before straining or blending; undercooked peas stay grainy and keep the soup thick and uneven. Cooking time varies with the peas and heat, so check texture rather than relying only on the clock.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, spinach, lettuce, 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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