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Green Pease Soup

A soup made from green peas, broth, bread crumbs, and optional garnishes of cucumber and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,137 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pease Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Shell the peas, keeping old ones separate from young ones, and reserve 1 pint of young peas.

  2. Boil the peas in a large saucepan half full of water with a handful of salt for 20 to 30 minutes until tender.

  3. Drain the peas and transfer them to a clean gallon stew pan with 3 quarts of broth.

  4. Cover and simmer gently for 1 hour.

Make the soup

  1. Add the bread crumbs and rub the mixture through a fine sieve into another pan.

  2. Stir and adjust thickness with more broth if needed.

  3. Boil the reserved young peas until tender and add them to the soup.

  4. Season with salt and sugar.

  5. Pound pea hulls or spinach, squeeze the juice into the soup for a greener color.

  6. Add mint leaves if desired.

Add the cucumbers and serve

  1. Slice cucumbers, remove seeds, drain, flour, and fry in butter until light brown.

  2. Add the fried cucumbers to the soup 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + spinachtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together355 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Peas + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together629 recipes

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

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

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 flavor of the soup.
Veal or mutton broth
Supplies the liquid and savory meaty flavor that carries the soup.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the soup and give it a smoother, more body-filled texture when sieved.
Cucumbers
Add a light, fresh note and a crisp-edged texture after frying in butter.
Butter
Fries the cucumbers, adding fat and encouraging light browning on their surface.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pushing the cooked peas and bread crumbs through a fine sieve breaks down the fibrous skins and starch, producing a smooth, thickened soup. Skipping or rushing this leaves a grainy texture.

Flavor stand-ins for the spinach

The recipe marks spinach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, veal, bread, sugar, cucumber, butter, mint):

  1. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  3. Lettucebetter flavor fit
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, veal, bread, sugar, cucumber, butter, mint. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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