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Green Pea Soup

A hearty soup of butter, ham, green peas, onions, lettuce, spinach, and rolls simmered in stock.

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

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 Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over low heat.

  2. Add the ham, stock, green peas, onions, and shredded lettuce.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour.

  4. Add 2 quarts of stock and the crumbed French rolls.

  5. Boil for 1 hour.

Finish the soup

  1. Blanch the spinach.

  2. Strain and squeeze the spinach dry.

  3. Rub the spinach through a fine sieve into the soup for color.

  4. Boil the younger peas in 1 pint of stock until done.

  5. Add the boiled younger peas to the soup.

  6. Add a little sugar and salt to taste.

  7. Bring to a boil.

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. Lettuce + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cabbage + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together190 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 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

Green peas
Form the main body and sweet, vegetal flavour of the soup.
French rolls
Absorb liquid and break down to thicken the soup and give it body.
Onions
Slow cooking softens them and adds sweetness and savoury depth to the base.
Spinach
Adds green colour when rubbed through a sieve into the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded, mellow flavour.
Ham
Releases savoury, salty flavour into the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Blanch the spinach and rub it in at the end. Spinach's green colour fades with prolonged heat, so it should be cooked only briefly, then pushed through a sieve so the soup stays bright green.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, sugar):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, 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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