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A Cheap Green Peas Soup

A soup made from green peas, cucumbers, lettuce, onion, butter, and herbs, simmered in boiled water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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A Cheap Green Peas Soup

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 ↓

A Cheap Green Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Wash the pea shells thoroughly and add them to boiling salted water.

  2. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes until tender, then strain and press the pods with a wooden spoon.

  3. Measure the liquid and pour 2 quarts into a clean deep saucepan.

Make the soup

  1. Bring the liquid to a boil and add 1 quart of peas, 2 or 3 peeled and quartered cucumbers, 3 chopped lettuces, and 1 thinly sliced onion that has been stewed in butter for 30 minutes.

  2. Add parsley and mint leaves, then simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Season with salt and white pepper or cayenne to taste.

  4. Strain the soup through a fine sieve, reheat, and serve with small fried bread sippets.

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

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

  2. Peas + minttop 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. Peas + lettucetop 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

Green peas
Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavour of the soup.
Lettuce
Adds soft body and mild sweetness as it softens during simmering.
Cucumber
Contributes fresh, mild flavour and extra moisture to the soup.
Onion
Builds savoury depth as it softens slowly in butter before simmering.
Butter
Carries onion flavour and adds richness to the base.
Pea shells
Release sweet, green flavour into the stock that forms the soup base.

The step that matters

Simmering the soup for 1 hour. Long gentle simmering softens the vegetables fully and draws out their flavour, while a hard boil can dull the fresh green colour and make the soup taste cooked and flat.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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