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Potage Aux Petits Pois

A French soup of veal, peas, bacon, and herbs simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Potage Aux Petits Pois

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock base

  1. In a pot, layer the sliced onion and veal, then add the herbs and stock.

  2. Stew gently until the mixture is a good color.

Prepare the peas and bacon

  1. In a separate pan, fry the bacon with the chopped parsley.

  2. Add the green peas to the bacon.

  3. Stew until the peas are tender.

  4. Pound the peas in a mortar.

Combine and finish

  1. Add the pounded peas to the soup with the veal.

  2. Remove the veal from the soup.

  3. Set the veal aside.

  4. Pass the soup through a fine sieve.

  5. Check that the soup is as thick as cream.

  6. Add a pinch of powdered sugar.

  7. Season to taste.

  8. Serve the soup.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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, thickening the soup when pounded and sieved.
Veal
Builds a savory, meaty flavor base as it stews in the stock.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that carries flavor into the peas.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it cooks slowly into the broth.
Stock
Supplies the liquid that carries flavor and extracts the veal and herbs.

The step that matters

Pass the soup through a fine sieve. Pounding and sieving breaks down the pea cells and removes fibrous skins, giving the smooth, creamy texture the soup needs. Skipping or rushing this leaves a grainy result.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, veal, thyme, parsley, sugar, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, veal, thyme, parsley, sugar, 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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