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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from old green peas, water, mint, onions, pepper, and fresh peas, fried onions, cucumbers, lettuce, and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Green Pea 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 ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Combine the old green peas and water in a large pot.

  2. Add the tied bunch of mint, onions, and pepper.

  3. Boil until the peas are soft and then strain through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the young peas, fried onions, fried cucumbers, fried lettuce, and chopped fried mint.

  2. Let the mixture stew gently until the fresh vegetables are tender.

  3. Serve in a tureen.

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. Mint + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Peas + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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

Old green peas
Form the main body of the soup and thicken it when boiled and strained.
Young peas
Add fresh sweetness and bright texture after the base is strained.
Mint
Adds a cool, aromatic flavour to the soup.
Onions
Add savoury depth to the broth as it boils.

The step that matters

Boil until the peas are soft and then strain through a sieve. Peas must be fully softened so they break down and pass through the sieve smoothly. Under-cooked peas leave a grainy, starchy texture in the base.

Swap the onion

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

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

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