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Soup

Modern Cookery

A cucumber and lettuce soup with butter, peas, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. In a pot, combine cucumbers, lettuce, onions, parsley, and mint if using.

  2. Cook over gentle heat for nearly an hour, stirring occasionally.

  3. Add salt and a good seasoning of white pepper or cayenne.

Finish the soup

  1. Drain the mixture from the butter.

  2. Add the drained mixture to the strained stock.

  3. Let the mixture boil gently until the butter rises to the surface.

  4. Add the boiled peas.

  5. Serve the soup immediately.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up most of the soup, giving it a fresh, cool, watery body.
Lettuce
Softens as it cooks, adding body and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour.
Onions
Cook down slowly, adding savoury depth and a gentle sweetness to the base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, which rises to the surface and can be skimmed off.
Peas
Add body, a fresh green flavour and natural sweetness when stirred in.

The step that matters

Let the mixture boil gently until the butter rises. A gentle boil lets the melted butter separate and float so it can be skimmed cleanly. A hard, vigorous boil can break the fat into fine droplets that stay mixed in the liquid, making the soup greasy and harder to clear.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, lettuce, onion, parsley, butter, white pepper, peas. 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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