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Soup

Green Peas Soup, Without Meat

A soup made from boiled green peas, blended with vegetable stock, butter, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Green Peas Soup, Without Meat

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Peas Soup, Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea base

  1. Boil the peas in 3 quarts of water until tender, then drain and pound them.

  2. Gradually mix in 5 pints of the cooking liquid and return to the heat, simmering for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Cook the vegetables

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and sauté the cucumbers, lettuce, and onions over low heat for about an hour.

  2. Add the salt and season with white pepper or cayenne to taste.

  3. Drain the vegetables from the butter and add them to the strained pea stock.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring to a gentle boil until the butter rises to the surface.

  2. Stir in the boiled young peas and serve immediately.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  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. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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

Large green peas
Form the main body and flavor of the soup as they are pounded and simmered.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor when used to sauté the vegetables.
Cucumbers
Contribute a mild, fresh flavor and soft texture as they cook down.
Lettuce hearts
Add body and a gentle sweetness as they soften during slow sautéing.
Onions
Provide savory depth and sweetness as they cook slowly in butter.

The step that matters

Sautéing the vegetables over low heat. Slow, gentle cooking softens the vegetables and builds sweetness without browning them, keeping the soup pale and delicately flavored.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, cucumber, lettuce, onion, white pepper, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Mintthe original

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