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Grbbn Pea Soup

A soup made from green peas, lettuces, spinach, mint, butter, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Grbbn Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea base

  1. In a stew pan, combine 1 pint of peas, 1 ounce of butter, mint, spinach, and half the lettuces.

  2. Stir well to steam the vegetables in the butter for about 10 minutes without browning.

  3. Add the cold water and simmer until tender.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve, rubbing as much of the peas through as possible.

Finish and serve

  1. Melt 1 ounce of butter in a pan, stir in the flour, and add the pea puree; bring to a boil.

  2. Add ¼ pint of boiled peas and the remaining lettuce to the boiling soup.

  3. Let everything boil together for 5 minutes.

  4. Serve with fried bread croutons. If a thinner soup is desired, add more water.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

Green peas
Provide the main body, sweet flavor and green color of the soup.
Lettuces
Soften during steaming and add mild sweetness and body to the soup.
Butter
Gently steams the vegetables and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the puree so the soup has a fuller, smoother body.

The step that matters

Steaming without browning. Cooking the vegetables in butter over gentle heat softens them and releases flavor. If the butter browns, it turns bitter and dulls the fresh green color of the soup.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Mintthe original

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