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A Green Pease Soup

A green pea soup made with cucumbers, lettuce, mint, onions, parsley, peas, butter, and beef gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 1,409 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Green Pease Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine cucumbers, lettuce, mint, onions, parsley, white pepper, salt, young peas, and butter in a stewpan.

  2. Stew gently in their own liquid for 1 hour.

  3. Pulp the boiled old peas through a colander and mix with the beef gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Once the herbs and cucumbers are stewed, combine everything and bring to a boil.

  2. Serve the soup very hot.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,137 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lettuce + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,293 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the soup with fat, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Old peas
Pulped and blended into the gravy, they thicken the soup and add body and pea flavor.
Beef gravy
Forms the savory liquid base that gives the soup its body and depth.
Young peas
Stewed in their own liquid, they add fresh, sweet pea flavor.
Cucumbers
Stewed until soft, they contribute moisture and a mild, fresh flavor.

The step that matters

Stew gently in their own liquid for 1 hour. Gentle heat lets the vegetables release and keep their juices and soften without scorching. Boiling hard can break down the texture and cause sticking at the base of the pan.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Capersbetter flavor fit
  3. Thymebetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, lettuce, mint, onion, parsley, peas, butter. 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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