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Dried Green Peas Soup

A soup made from split green peas simmered with water, butter, flour, spinach juice, lettuce, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Dried Green Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Combine split green peas and soft water in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer.

  3. Cook until peas can pass through a colander, about 1-2 hours.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate bowl, mix 2 ounces of butter with 1 tablespoon of flour.

  2. Add the spinach juice and lettuce to the pea mixture.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Stir in the butter‑flour mixture.

  5. Boil for an additional 10 minutes before serving.

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. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, 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. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 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

Split green peas
Break down during long cooking to thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, rounding out the flavour and smoothing the texture.
Flour
Combined with butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Spinach juice
Adds colour and a mild green, vegetal flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter-flour mixture. Flour lumps easily if added directly to hot liquid. Blending it with butter first and stirring it in helps it disperse evenly, so the soup thickens smoothly instead of clumping.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, spinach, lettuce, pepper, flour):

  1. Cashew nutfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, spinach, lettuce, pepper, flour. 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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