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Green Pea Soup

A savory soup made with butter, ham, stock, green peas, onions, cabbage lettuce, spinach, younger peas, French rolls, sugar, and salt.

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 stewpan.

  2. Add the ham, stock, green peas, onions, and lettuces.

  3. Simmer on low heat for 1 hour.

  4. Add 2 quarts of stock and the crumb of the French rolls, then boil for 1 hour.

Finish the soup

  1. Blanch the spinach, then strain and squeeze it dry.

  2. Rub the soup and spinach through a tammy to combine.

  3. Boil the younger peas in 1 pint of stock, then add to the soup.

  4. Add sugar and salt to taste, then bring to a boil.

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. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cabbage + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together190 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Provide the main body of flavour and a sweet, vegetal base for the soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften slowly in the stock.
French rolls
Their crumb thickens the soup and gives it a smoother, fuller body.
Spinach
Adds colour and a green, earthy note when rubbed through into the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Rub the soup and spinach through a tammy. Pushing the cooked soup and spinach through a fine sieve breaks down fibres and solids, giving a smooth texture. Spinach must be blanched and squeezed dry first so excess water does not thin the soup.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, 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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