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A Cheap Green Peas Soup

A soup made from green peas, cucumbers, lettuce, onion, herbs, and butter, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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A Cheap Green Peas Soup

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Cheap Green Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Wash the pea shells thoroughly.

  2. Boil the pea shells in salted water for 20 to 30 minutes until tender.

  3. Strain the mixture and measure the liquid, reserving 2 quarts.

Make the soup

  1. In a clean saucepan, bring the reserved liquid to a boil.

  2. Add the green peas, cucumbers, lettuce, and onion to the boiling liquid.

  3. Sauté the onion in a small amount of butter until soft, then add the sautéed onion to the soup.

  4. Add parsley and mint, and simmer gently for 1 hour.

  5. Season with salt and white pepper or cayenne to taste.

  6. Press the soup through a fine sieve.

  7. Reheat the soup.

Serve

  1. Serve with small fried bread sippets.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Give the soup its main body, sweet flavour and bright green colour.
Lettuce
Adds soft, mild leafy body and helps thicken the soup as it cooks down.
Cucumbers
Contribute fresh, cool flavour and moisture to the soup.
Pea shells
Simmered to make a flavourful liquid that carries the pea taste into the soup.
Onion
Adds savoury depth as it softens in butter before going into the soup.

The step that matters

Press the soup through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a fine sieve breaks down their fibres and produces a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup grainy or stringy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, cucumber, lettuce, onion, butter, parsley, mint):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, cucumber, lettuce, onion, butter, parsley, mint. 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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