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Green Peas Soup

A soup made from old and young green peas, lettuces, spinach juice, and seasonings.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine old green peas and water in a pot.

  2. Add bread, onions, mint, salt, and pepper.

  3. Boil until peas are soft, then strain through a sieve.

Add the greens and young peas

  1. In a separate pan, stew lettuces in butter until tender.

  2. Boil young green peas in water until cooked.

  3. Add stewed lettuces, young peas, spinach juice, and pea pod juice to the soup.

  4. Boil everything together 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.

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Old green peas
Provide the main body and sweet, earthy flavor of the soup as they break down.
Lettuces
Add tender leafy body and a mild, fresh sweetness when stewed in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder mouthfeel while gently cooking the lettuces.
Young green peas
Contribute bright, sweet pea flavor and a fresher texture than the old peas.
Onions
Build a savory aromatic base as they soften in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Boil until peas are soft, then strain through a sieve. Old peas need full softening so they break down smoothly; under-cooked peas leave the strained soup grainy and thin in flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, bread, mint, pepper, lettuce, butter, spinach. 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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