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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from young peas, stock, onion, lettuce, parsley, mint, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Shell the peas, which should be young.

  2. Put the shells into a pot with 1 quart of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Boil for 1 hour.

  3. Pulp the mixture through a colander or sieve.

  4. Return the pulp to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 1 quart of good stock, 1 chopped onion, finely chopped lettuce, parsley, mint, and the shelled peas. Boil until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.

  2. Season to taste.

  3. Serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Provide the main body of flavour and a thick, smooth texture once pulped.
Good stock
Adds savoury depth and liquid that carries the soup's body.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury background to the soup.
Lettuce
Contributes mild sweetness and soft texture as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Pulping the mixture through a sieve. Pushing the cooked material through a colander or sieve removes fibrous skins, which gives the soup a smooth texture instead of a grainy one.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, sugar, beef, lettuce, parsley, 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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