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An Excellent Green Peas Soup

A soup made from boiled green peas, stock, sugar, and optional asparagus, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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An Excellent Green Peas Soup

Why it works: Peas and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 808 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

An Excellent Green Peas Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Boil the peas with the bicarbonate of soda until tender, about 25 to 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the peas and add them to the boiling stock.

Make the soup

  1. Gently stew the mixture for 30 minutes.

  2. Pass the soup through a fine sieve into a clean pan and bring to a boil.

  3. Add salt and pound sugar, skimming off any scum.

Finish and serve

  1. For an elegant version, add the additional stock and asparagus points just before serving.

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. Peas + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  2. Beef + asparagustop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  3. Peas + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,044 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + asparagustop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the soup, breaking down into a thick, smooth purée.
Carbonate of soda
Softens the peas and helps them keep a bright green colour while cooking.
Beef or veal stock
Provides the liquid base and savoury depth for the soup.
Pounded sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the savoury stock and the peas.

The step that matters

Skimming off any scum. Scum rising from the peas and stock can cloud the soup and taste bitter. Removing it while the soup simmers keeps the colour clean and the flavour fresh.

Swap the asparagus

The recipe marks asparagus as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, beef, sugar):

  1. Asparagusthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, beef, sugar. 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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