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Pea Soup K LA Cecil

A hearty green pea soup with bacon, vegetables, and herbs, finished with boiled rice and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pea Soup K LA Cecil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the peas thoroughly.

  2. Boil the peas in water with the carrot, onion, and leek foliage.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add the bacon and salt, skimming the soup while boiling.

  2. Simmer gently for one hour.

  3. Pass the soup through a sieve and add water to achieve desired thickness.

Finish and serve

  1. Stew the sorrel and lettuces in butter, then add to the soup along with the boiled rice.

  2. Before serving, add the chervil to the soup.

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. Sorrel + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried green peas
Form the body and thickness of the soup as they break down during long simmering.
Bacon
Adds savoury, smoky fat that flavours the broth as it cooks.
Sorrel
Contributes a sharp, acidic brightness and fresh green flavour.
Boiled rice
Adds body and a silky thickness to the soup.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness when the greens are stewed.

The step that matters

Skimming while boiling. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the soup boils. Skimming them off keeps the broth clean in flavour and colour before the long simmer.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, leek, sorrel, lettuce, butter, rice):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, leek, sorrel, lettuce, butter, rice. 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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