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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from green peas, stock, butter, and a custard made of eggs, milk, and cream.

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

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

Make the soup

  1. Put the peas in a stewpan, add about 4 cups of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, parsley, spring onions, and mint; boil until tender and rub through a fine sieve.

  2. Return the mixture to the stewpan, add the stock and butter, and simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Season to taste and add the cream.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the milk with the eggs, beat well, season to taste, and strain into a well-buttered charlotte mold.

  2. Poach in a sauté pan half full of boiling water until set.

  3. Unmold and cut the custard into even-sized cubes.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, add a pinch of sugar and a pat of fresh butter to the soup, add the custard cubes, 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.

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

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

  2. Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Freshly shelled peas
Provide the main body, flavour and thick texture of the soup once puréed.
Eggs
Set the custard when gently heated, giving the cubes their firm structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the custard, keeping it tender as it sets.
White stock
Thins the purée and adds savoury depth to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Poach the custard until just set. Egg proteins set at fairly low temperatures, so water that is too hot or too long in the pan can make the custard rubbery, pocked, or watery. Gentle heat keeps it smooth and tender enough to cut into even cubes.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, cream, milk, parsley, onion, butter, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, cream, milk, parsley, onion, butter, egg. 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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