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Green Pea Soup

A soup made with peas, lettuce, onion, mint, and stock, simmered and strained.

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

Prepare

  1. Soak dried peas in water for 12 hours.

  2. Bring the stock to a boil and add the baking soda.

Cook

  1. Add the soaked peas (or fresh peas), onion, lettuce, and mint to the stock.

  2. Simmer for 1 hour if using fresh peas, or 2 hours for dried peas.

Finish

  1. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Season well.

  3. Bring to a boil.

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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Peas
Provide the main body and starch that thicken the soup as they cook and break down.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the stock, which helps the peas soften more quickly during simmering.
Lettuce
Adds soft leafy body and a mild, fresh flavour to the purée.
Onion
Adds savoury aromatic depth as it softens into the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer until the peas are fully tender. Peas need enough time in hot liquid for their starches to swell and their cell walls to soften. Dried peas need about twice as long as fresh, so undercooked peas will leave the purée grainy and thick.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, lettuce, mint):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, mint. 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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