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A Cheap Green Peas Soup

A soup made from green peas, cucumbers, lettuces, onions, herbs, and butter, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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A Cheap Green Peas Soup

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce 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 ↓

A Cheap Green Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea stock

  1. Wash the pea shells thoroughly.

  2. Add the washed shells to boiling salted water.

  3. Cook the pea shells for 20 to 30 minutes until tender.

  4. Strain the cooked shells and press the pods with a wooden spoon.

  5. Measure the liquid and pour 2 quarts into a clean deep saucepan.

  6. Bring the liquid to a boil.

Make the soup

  1. Stew the thinly sliced onion in a little butter for 30 minutes.

  2. Add 1 quart of green peas, cucumbers, lettuces, and the stewed onion.

  3. Add parsley and mint leaves.

  4. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  5. Season with salt and white pepper or cayenne to taste.

  6. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

Serve

  1. Reheat the soup.

  2. Serve with small fried bread sippets.

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.

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.

  1. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pea shells
Simmered in water to make a flavourful stock for the soup.
Green peas
Give the soup its main body and sweet, fresh pea flavour.
Lettuces
Soften during simmering to add body and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour.
Cucumbers
Add a cool, fresh, watery vegetable flavour to the soup.
Onion
Stewed in butter first to build a mellow, savoury base.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the stewed onion.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 1 hour. A gentle simmer keeps the soup from boiling hard, which can dull the fresh green colour and flavour of the peas and lettuce. Straining afterwards gives a smooth texture.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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