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Soup

Cucumber and Pea Soup

A soup made from mutton broth, bacon, onion, carrot, turnips, cucumber, lettuce, and green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cucumber and Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Make mutton broth from neck and head, bacon, onion, carrot, turnips, salt, and herbs.

  2. Strain the broth.

Make the soup

  1. Brown the broth with butter and the crumb of the French roll.

  2. Add cucumbers and lettuce.

  3. Stew for 15 minutes in 1 quart of broth.

  4. When boiling, add green peas.

  5. Gradually add the remaining broth.

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 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. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps brown the broth.
French roll crumb
Thickens the broth and gives it a fuller body.
Cucumbers
Add moisture and a fresh, mild flavour to the soup.
Lettuce
Softens as it stews, adding body and a gentle green flavour.
Green peas
Add sweetness and colour, and body once cooked and blended into the soup.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, carrot, turnip, butter, cucumber, lettuce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, carrot, turnip, butter, cucumber, lettuce. 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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