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White Peas Soup

A soup made from soaked white peas, water, stock, spices, served with fried bread and dried mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the peas

  1. Soak the white peas in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Boil the peas in 1 quart of water until tender.

  3. Pulse the peas through a sieve into a stewpan.

Season and simmer

  1. Add good stock, white pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread and a sprinkle of dried mint.

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

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

  2. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  3. White pepper + minttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + minttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together244 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Peas + white peppertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White peas
Break down into a thick, creamy body that gives the soup its texture.
Good stock
Adds savory depth and flavor to the pea base.

The step that matters

Boil the peas until fully tender before sieving. Peas that are not fully softened stay firm and grainy, so they resist breaking down and the sieved soup will be coarse rather than smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, bread, mint. 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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