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Lettuce and Whole-pea Soup

A soup made with blanched cabbage lettuces, peas, bacon, and consommé, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lettuce and Whole-pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuces

  1. Pick, wash, and blanch the lettuces; cut them open and spread on a clean napkin.

  2. Season with mignonette pepper and coarse sea salt; tie two lettuces together with twine.

Braise

  1. Cover the bottom of a stewpan with bacon, place the lettuces on top, and pour broth over them.

  2. Cover with buttered paper and a lid; bring to a boil, then simmer gently for about 1 hour.

Assemble and serve

  1. Drain the lettuces, untie them, and cut into 1‑inch lengths; place in a soup tureen with the peas and a pinch of pepper.

  2. Remove fat from the braising broth and add it to the tureen; pour in the consommé.

  3. Taste the soup for seasoning and add duchess crusts before serving.

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

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

  2. Lettuce + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + peastop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together392 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

White-heart cabbage lettuces
Become tender and absorb the braising broth, forming the body of the soup.
Fat bacon
Adds savoury fat and flavour to the braising broth as it melts.
Young green peas
Add sweetness and fresh, tender texture to the finished soup.
Consommé of fowl
Forms the clear, flavourful liquid base of the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 1 hour. A hard boil can toughen and break up the lettuces and cloud the clear consommé. Gentle simmering keeps the leaves tender and the broth clear.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, lettuce, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, lettuce, 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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