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Pea Soup

A veal and bacon broth with young and boiled green peas, sweetened with white sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Mint and peas 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 ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the veal and bacon into pieces.

  2. Place them in a large pot with the mint and water.

  3. Boil and skim the surface well.

  4. Once the meat is tender, strain the mixture.

  5. Add 1 quart of young green peas to the broth and boil until dissolved.

Finish the soup

  1. In another pot, boil 2 quarts of green peas with a sprig of mint and sugar.

  2. Combine the boiled peas with the soup broth.

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. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Veal + peastop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Veal + minttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the broth as it simmers.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavors the broth.
Green peas
Provide the main body, sweetness and green flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Boil and skim the surface well. Skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that would otherwise cloud the broth and give it a scummy taste.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Mintthe original
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, peas, sugar. 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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