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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from shelled peas, young peas, lettuce, butter, flour, salt, pepper, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the shelled peas in water until soft.

  2. Mash the peas through a colander, adding a little water to free the pulp from the skins.

  3. Return the pulp to the boiling water.

  4. Add the chopped lettuce and young peas, and boil for half an hour.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Thicken the soup with butter rubbed into a little flour.

Serve

  1. Serve with bits of toasted bread.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Shelled peas
Form the main body of the soup and, once mashed, its thick texture.
Lettuce
Adds soft body and a mild vegetable flavour to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup when rubbed with butter and stirred in.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with butter rubbed into a little flour. Flour must be worked into the butter first so it disperses without lumps; starch then thickens the hot liquid as it heats.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, butter, flour, pepper, bread. 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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