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Soup

Green Pea Soup

A soup made with peas, spinach, mint, stock, and butter, finished with a roux and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Peas and mint 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 ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Melt 1 oz of butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the peas, spinach, and mint.

  3. Cover and steam for 15-20 minutes.

  4. Add the stock, water, and washed pea-shells if young and soft.

  5. Boil quickly until tender.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain and rub the vegetables through a fine sieve.

  2. Melt the remaining butter in the stewpan.

  3. Sprinkle in the flour.

  4. Add the stock and puree.

  5. Stir until boiling.

  6. Season to taste.

  7. Serve with croutons of fried bread.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  4. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

  5. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Provide the main body of the soup and its green colour and sweet flavour.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the vegetables and gives the soup richness.
Flour
Thickens the stock and puree so the soup becomes smooth and full-bodied.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and softens the vegetables.

The step that matters

Boil quickly until tender. Cooking the peas fast in plenty of liquid keeps their bright green colour, while slow cooking turns them dull and muddy. Make sure they are fully tender before straining, since undercooked peas stay grainy and do not purée smoothly.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Mintthe original

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