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Green-peas Soup

A soup made with shelled old and young green peas, butter, water, lettuce leaves, onions, spinach, and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Green-peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine old peas, butter, 4 cups of water, lettuce leaves, onions, salt, and pepper in a pot.

  2. Stew until peas can be pulped.

  3. Add more water to the pot along with young peas, spinach, and additional salt and pepper.

  4. Stew until soft.

Finish and serve

  1. If the soup is too thin, mix ½ cup butter with 1 tablespoon of flour or rice, and boil with the soup for 30 minutes.

  2. Before serving, add finely chopped mint to 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. 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. Pepper + spinachtop 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

Old peas
Break down during stewing to give the soup its body and thickness.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Young peas
Add fresh, sweet pea flavour and a brighter green colour.
Onions
Build a savoury, aromatic base as they soften in the pot.
Flour or rice (in the method)
Thickens the soup when it is too thin, as the starch absorbs liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stewing until the peas pulp. Peas must cook long enough for their starches to soften and break down; undercooked peas leave the soup grainy and thin. Stop when they mash easily, since overcooking dulls the bright green colour.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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