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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from boiled green peas, spinach, broth, onion, and cream, sweetened with powdered sugar and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Peas and spinach work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 550 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the peas until tender, then drain and pass through a fine sieve.

  2. In a pot, combine the pea puree with the broth and add the chopped onion.

  3. Boil the onion with the peas.

  4. Pass the mixture through the sieve for added flavor.

Finish and serve

  1. Bruise the spinach leaves and mix them with the cream or milk.

  2. Stir the spinach mixture into the soup until it reaches a creamy consistency.

  3. Add a pinch of powdered sugar and salt to taste.

  4. Serve hot with croutons or young peas added.

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

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

  2. Spinach + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  5. Spinach + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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, becoming a smooth puree when cooked and sieved.
Light-colored broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the pea flavor.
Spinach leaves
Add fresh green flavor and color to the soup.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a creamy texture.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic flavor to the base.

The step that matters

Stirring in the spinach and cream. Adding cream or milk to a hot soup can cause it to curdle or separate if it boils. Keeping the soup hot but not boiling after this step helps it stay smooth and creamy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, onion, cream, sugar):

  1. Cashew nutfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, onion, cream, sugar. 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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