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Soup

Another Green Peas Soup Without Meat

A vegetarian soup made with old and young green peas, onions, lettuce, mint, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Another Green Peas Soup Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea base

  1. Boil the water and add the old green peas. Cook until they are perfectly soft.

  2. Pulp the peas through a sieve.

Add the onions and finish

  1. Slice the onions and fry them in butter until golden.

  2. Add the fried onions to the pulped peas along with the lettuce and chopped mint.

  3. Add the young green peas and boil until tender.

  4. Stir in the remaining butter until melted, then season with pepper and salt.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Old green peas
Break down into a thick, smooth body for the soup when pulped.
Onions
Fried until golden, they add sweetness and savory depth to the soup.
Butter
Frying fat for the onions and a rich finish stirred in at the end.
Lettuce
Adds soft, mild vegetable flavor and body to the pulped soup.
Young green peas
Boiled until tender, they add fresh pea flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Pulping the old peas until perfectly soft. Peas that are not fully softened before sieving leave a grainy, uneven texture. Cooking until they break down easily gives the soup a smooth base.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, lettuce, mint, pepper):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, lettuce, mint, pepper. 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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