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Soup

A Cheap Green Peas Soup

A soup made from green peas, cucumbers, lettuces, onion, parsley, mint, and seasonings, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Make the stock

  1. Wash the pea shells thoroughly and place them in a pot with 3 quarts of boiling salted water.

  2. Add the tender peas and cook for 20 to 30 minutes.

Simmer and serve

  1. Peel, quarter, and seed the cucumbers, then add them to the pot along with the lettuces, onion, parsley, and mint.

  2. Season with salt and pepper or cayenne, and simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the soup through a fine sieve, reheat, and serve with small fried bread snippets.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pea shells
Simmered in water to release flavour and body into the stock.
Green peas
Cooked until tender, adding sweetness and a thick, smooth body to the soup.
Cucumbers
Add a cool, fresh flavour and some moisture to the soup.
Lettuces
Add mild, vegetal flavour and body as they cook down in the broth.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the base of the soup.

The step that matters

Strain through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked solids through a fine sieve removes fibrous pieces and skins, giving the soup a smooth texture rather than a grainy or stringy one.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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