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Green Pease Soup

A soup made from boiled peas, broth, bread crumbs, and optional cucumber garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 1,137 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pease Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Shell the peas, keeping old ones in one bowl and young ones in another.

  2. Reserve 1 pint of young peas to boil separately.

  3. Bring half full of water to a boil in a large saucepan.

  4. Add the peas and a handful of salt.

  5. Boil for 20 to 30 minutes until tender.

  6. Drain the peas in a colander.

  7. Transfer the peas to a clean gallon stew pan.

Make the soup

  1. Add 3 quarts of broth and cover.

  2. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve into another stew pan.

  5. If the soup is too thick, add more broth.

  6. Add the reserved boiled young peas.

  7. Season with salt and sugar.

  8. Pound pea hulls or spinach and squeeze the juice into the soup.

  9. Add mint leaves if desired.

Prepare the cucumbers and serve

  1. Slice cucumbers, remove seeds, and drain on a cloth.

  2. Flour the cucumber slices.

  3. Fry the cucumber slices in butter until light brown.

  4. Add the cucumber slices to the soup 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.

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

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

  2. Cucumber + spinachtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together355 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Peas + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together629 recipes

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

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Form the main body and flavor of the soup, thickened when rubbed through a sieve.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the soup and give it a fuller, smoother body.
Veal or mutton broth
Provides the liquid base and savory meaty flavor of the soup.
Cucumbers
Add a crisp, fried contrast in texture to the smooth soup.
Butter
Fries the floured cucumber slices, adding richness and browning.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing cooked peas through a sieve breaks down their cell walls and fibers, producing a smooth, thick purée. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup grainy.

Flavor stand-ins for the spinach

The recipe marks spinach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, veal, bread, sugar, cucumber, butter, mint):

  1. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  3. Lettucebetter flavor fit
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, veal, bread, sugar, cucumber, butter, mint. 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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