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Tea Soup

A pea soup flavored with anchovies, pepper, salt, herbs, beetroot, spinach, and a touch of sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 280 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Tea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Boil the peas until they are a pulp, then strain them.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the anchovies, ground black pepper, coarse sea salt, parsley, mint, beetroot, and spinach. Stew until tender.

  3. Stir in the pulped peas until the soup reaches the desired consistency.

  4. Add the loaf sugar, bring to a boil, and serve.

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. Beetroot + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Parsley + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + beetroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together745 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Form the main body of the soup as a thick pulp.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the herbs and seasonings.
Anchovies
Contribute a savoury, salty depth to the soup.
Loaf sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness to balance the savoury flavours.

The step that matters

Stirring in the pulped peas. Pea pulp thickens as it heats and can turn gluey or stick to the base of the pan if left unstirred. Adding it gradually while stirring gives a smooth, even consistency.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, pepper, parsley, beetroot, spinach, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, pepper, parsley, beetroot, spinach, sugar. 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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