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Green-pea Soup

A soup made with green peas, broth, onion, butter, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Green-pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté the chopped onion until translucent.

  2. Add the green peas and broth, then bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Blend the soup until smooth, then season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with fresh mint leaves if desired.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 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
Provide the main body, sweet flavor and bright green color of the soup.
Broth
Supplies the liquid that cooks the peas and carries the savory flavor.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness as it softens and turns translucent in the butter.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor while cooking the onion without browning it.

The step that matters

Blending until smooth. Peas must be fully broken down in the hot liquid so the soup has a silky texture. Under-blending leaves grainy, fibrous bits that feel unpleasant on the palate.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, chicken, onion, butter, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, chicken, onion, butter, 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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