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Green Pea Soup

A hearty soup made with green peas, mutton, onions, turnips, carrots, parsley, and thickened with flour and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the peas and soak the head in salted water for an hour if time allows.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the head, 3 pints of cold water, and 2 teaspoons of salt. Boil for 10 minutes, then discard the water.

Make the soup

  1. Add 2 quarts of cold water, the mutton, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim the pot.

  3. Add the onions, turnips, carrots, parsley, 1 teaspoon of salt, and white pepper.

  4. Simmer for 4-5 hours until the head is tender.

  5. Strain the soup and remove any fat.

  6. Puree the vegetables and mix with 1 tablespoon of flour dissolved in ½ pint of milk.

  7. Bring the soup to a boil.

  8. Stir in the thickening and vegetable puree.

  9. Adjust seasoning if needed.

Serve

  1. Cut the best pieces of the head into squares and boil them in the soup until tender.

  2. Serve without them.

  3. Chop fresh parsley.

  4. Serve separately.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Break down into a puree that gives the soup its body and green colour.
Mutton scrag
Releases savoury meaty flavour and richness into the broth as it simmers.
Flour
Starch swells when heated and thickens the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a softer, rounder mouthfeel.
Onions
Turn sweet and aromatic as they cook slowly in the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and milk thickening. Flour dissolved in milk should be stirred smoothly into the hot soup. Starch granules swell as they heat, so whisking while the soup is at a boil prevents lumps and gives an even, thickened texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, mutton, onion, turnip, carrot, parsley, potato):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, mutton, onion, turnip, carrot, parsley, potato. 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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