Skip to main content
Main

St. Germain Soup

A pea soup made with marrowfat peas, stock, milk, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

St. Germain Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain and rinse the peas, reserving ⅓ cup.

Make the soup

  1. Put the remaining peas in cold water with seasonings and simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve and add the stock.

  3. Bind with butter and corn-starch cooked together.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Add the milk and reserved peas.

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 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Marrowfat peas
Provide the main body and flavour of the soup once puréed through a sieve.
Butter and corn-starch
Cooked together, they form a roux that thickens the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavour when added at the end.

The step that matters

Bind with butter and corn-starch cooked together. Cooking butter and corn-starch together first forms a roux. Adding raw starch directly to hot liquid can clump, while a well-cooked roux blends smoothly and thickens the soup evenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, onion, parsley, milk, sugar, pepper, butter. 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipes