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Dried Green Peas Soup

A soup made from soaked dried green peas, boiled spinach, lettuce, butter, flour, salt, and soda.

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

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the peas in soft water for 12 hours.

Cook and strain

  1. In a quart of boiling soft water, add the soaked peas, salt, soda, and 2 ounces of butter.

  2. Simmer gently until the peas are tender.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine colander.

Finish and serve

  1. Chop the boiled spinach and lettuce, then add to the soup.

  2. Stir in the remaining butter and flour mixed with a little cold water 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. Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 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

Dried green peas
Form the body of the soup as they soften and break down into a thick purée.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when stirred in as a smooth paste.
Spinach
Adds colour and a mild, earthy flavour to the soup.
Lettuce
Adds moisture and a delicate vegetal flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine colander. Pushing the cooked peas through a fine sieve breaks down the fibres and removes skins, giving a smooth texture. Skipping this leaves the soup grainy.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, lettuce, butter, 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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