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Soup

A Green Pease Soup Without Meat

A soup made from old and young peas, cucumbers, lettuces, onions, butter, sugar, white pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,409 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Green Pease Soup Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea base

  1. Put old peas into 3 quarts of water with mint.

  2. Boil until soft.

  3. Strain and pulp the peas through a sieve with a wooden spoon.

  4. Return the pulp to the water for later use.

Cook the vegetables

  1. In a stewpan, combine young peas, cucumbers, lettuces, and onions.

  2. Add butter, sugar, white pepper, and salt to the stewpan.

  3. Cook until the vegetables are tender.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,137 recipes

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

  3. Mint + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,293 recipes

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

  5. Peas + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together629 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

Old peas
Break down into a pulp that thickens and gives the soup its body and green color.
Young peas
Add fresh, sweet pea flavor and a tender texture to the finished soup.
Cucumbers
Contribute a mild, fresh flavor and soft, tender pieces when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the soup.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Capersbetter flavor fit
  3. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, mint, cucumber, lettuce, onion, butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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