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Green-pea Soup

A soup made from fresh peas, lettuce, leek, parsley, mint, milk, and water, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 217 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Green-pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add the shelled peas, their shells, lettuce, leek, parsley, and mint.

  3. Stir in the baking soda and cook for about 20 minutes until the peas are tender.

  4. Remove a few peas for garnish, then strain the soup through a sieve, pressing the vegetables and shells to extract as much liquid as possible.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the soup to the pot, add the milk, sugar, salt, and pepper, and bring to a boil again.

  2. Stir in the reserved whole peas and serve with croutons of fried bread.

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.

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.

  1. Lettuce + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together217 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,137 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together759 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,483 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh peas
Provide the main body of flavour and colour, and sweetness when cooked until tender.
Lettuce
Adds soft body and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour to the soup.
Leek
Contributes a gentle onion-like aroma and savoury depth to the base.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamier texture, softening the soup's flavour.
Baking soda
Helps the peas keep their bright green colour during cooking.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda and cook until the peas are tender. Baking soda raises the cooking liquid's pH, which helps peas stay bright green. Too much makes the soup soapy and can soften the vegetables excessively, so use only a small amount.

Flavor stand-ins for the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, lettuce, parsley, milk, leek, sugar, pepper):

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, parsley, milk, leek, sugar, pepper. 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.

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