Why it works: Peas and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,887 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Green Peas Soup, Without Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the peas
Boil the peas in 3 quarts of water with salt and baking soda until tender.
Drain the peas and pound them in a mortar.
Make the soup
Gradually mix in 5 pints of the cooking liquid.
Put the mixture back over the fire and simmer gently for 15 minutes.
Press the soup through a fine sieve.
Prepare the butter
In the meantime, simmer the butter in a separate pan.
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.
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Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,887 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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, as their starch thickens and gives a smooth texture when pureed.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
- Baking soda
- Raises the cooking water's alkalinity, helping the peas soften and break down more easily.
The step that matters
Gradually mix in the cooking liquid. Pounded peas form lumps if the liquid is added all at once. Adding it gradually lets the starch and pulp disperse evenly, giving a smoother soup before it is simmered and sieved.
“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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