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Green-Peas Soup

A soup made from old and young green peas with vegetables and spices, served with toasted or fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Green-Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Shell the peas, separating the old from the young ones.

  2. In a large pot, combine the old peas with boiling water, onions, turnips, carrots, celery, cloves, mace, and cabbage lettuces.

  3. Stew the mixture for 1 hour.

Strain and purée

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Add the 2 quarts of old green peas to the strained liquid.

  3. Boil until tender.

  4. Rub the mixture through a colander.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the mixture to the pot and add the young peas.

  2. Boil for an additional 15 minutes or until the young peas are cooked.

  3. Serve the soup in a tureen with toasted or fried bread slices.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 and thick, earthy flavour of the soup once puréed.
Onions
Build a savoury, aromatic base that gives the stock depth.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the simmered liquid.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and colour to the stock.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic note to the simmering broth.
Cabbage lettuces
Add vegetal sweetness and softness that blends into the soup.

The step that matters

Adding and cooking the young peas. Young peas are tender and sweet and cook quickly. Boiling them too long dulls their bright green colour and softens their flavour, so they should be added late and cooked only until done.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, turnip, carrot, celery, clove, cabbage, lettuce):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, turnip, carrot, celery, clove, cabbage, 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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