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Green Peas Soup Without Meat

A soup of green peas, onions, lettuce, mint, and butter, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Green Peas Soup Without Meat

Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Green Peas Soup Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea base

  1. Boil the old green peas in a gallon of water until perfectly soft.

  2. Pulp the peas through a sieve.

Add the onions and vegetables

  1. Slice the onions and fry them in butter.

  2. Add the fried onions to the pulped peas.

  3. Chop the lettuce and mint, then add them along with the young green peas.

  4. Boil everything together until the peas are tender.

Finish and season

  1. Stir in 2 tablespoons of butter until melted, then season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

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 + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 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 green peas
Break down into a thick pulp that gives the soup its body.
Onions
Frying them in butter builds a sweet, savoury base for the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Young green peas
Add fresh, bright pea flavour and tender pieces to the pulped base.
Lettuce
Softens as it simmers, adding mild sweetness and smoothness to the soup.

The step that matters

Pulp the peas through a sieve. Pushing the soft peas through a sieve breaks cell walls and removes skins, producing a smooth, thick texture. Peas that are not fully soft will leave the soup grainy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, lettuce, mint, 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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