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Petits Pois a LA Fran£aise

A pea soup with onions, lettuce, parsley, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Petits Pois a LA Fran£aise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the peas in a saucepan with cold water, salt, pepper, sugar, onions, lettuce, and parsley.

  2. Cover and stew briskly for about 30 minutes.

  3. Add the butter and flour, shaking until the butter melts.

  4. Stew for another 5 minutes, then 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.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,483 recipes

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

  3. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,293 recipes

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

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together25,843 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

Shelled peas
Provide the main body and flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Lightly thickens the soup, adding body to the liquid.
Lettuce
Adds moisture and a mild, sweet vegetable flavor as it softens.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour. Shaking the butter and flour into the hot soup helps the flour disperse and melt the butter evenly, so the soup thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sugar, onion, lettuce, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Chickpeabetter flavor fit
  2. Chestnutbetter flavor fit
  3. Lentilsbetter flavor fit
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, onion, lettuce, parsley, butter, flour. 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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