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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from green peas, lettuce, onions, spinach, butter, mint, salt, stock, pepper, sugar, and served with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Lettuce and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a clean 3-quart saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add the shredded vegetables, half of the peas, mint, salt, and stock.

  3. Stir gently and let the mixture stew until the vegetables are soft enough to pass through a sieve.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a bowl to separate the pulp from the tough parts.

Finish and serve

  1. Combine the pulp with 2 quarts of clear stock, pepper, loaf sugar, and more salt if needed.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil, skim if necessary, then reduce heat and let it simmer.

  3. In a separate saucepan, boil the remaining peas in salted water with a small lump of loaf sugar until tender.

  4. Drain the peas and add them to the soup before serving with sippets of 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. Lettuce + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

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

  2. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 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

Green peas
Form the main body and flavor of the soup once cooked and passed through a sieve.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor as the vegetables soften gently over low heat.
Lettuce
Softens while stewing, adding body and a mild, sweet vegetable flavor to the pulp.
Onion
Stewed until soft, adding savory depth to the base.
Stock
Provides the liquid that carries the soup and dissolves the vegetable flavors.

The step that matters

Passing the vegetables through a sieve. The vegetables must be soft enough to pass through the sieve. Undercooked vegetables stay fibrous and leave a grainy texture, while the tough parts left behind are what keep the pulp smooth.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Cucumberfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, onion, butter, mint, pepper, sugar. 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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