Name: Green Peas Soup
Ingredients: ½ peck (about 2.5 quarts) fresh green peas, shelled; 3 quarts water; 1 onion; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon allspice; 1 bunch fresh mint; 1 bunch fresh parsley; 1 teaspoon sugar

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Green Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the well-washed peas in 3 quarts of water with onion, pepper, allspice, mint, and parsley until very soft.
Strain the liquid and set it aside.
In a separate pot, boil the shelled peas in 1 quart of water with sugar.
Heat the strained liquid and add it to the boiled peas.
Chop the parsley and green herbs finely and fry them until fragrant.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,289 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,198 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas: Provide the main body and flavour of the soup as they cook down until very soft.
Sugar: Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savoury herbs and onion.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

Carrotbetter flavor fit
Shallotbetter flavor fit
Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, pepper, allspice, mint, parsley, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.