Skip to main content
Soup

Summer Soup

A pea and vegetable soup with spinach, celery, and green onions, finished with a sweet butter roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Summer Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a soup kettle over medium heat.

  2. Add the peas and shake constantly for 15 minutes to prevent browning.

  3. Remove half the peas and set aside.

  4. Pour in the vegetable stock.

  5. Add the chopped spinach, green onions, and celery.

  6. Let the mixture stew slowly for 2 hours until reduced to a jelly.

  7. Stir in the reserved peas and the sweet butter rolled in flour.

  8. Season with salt and pepper, then bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Pour into a hot soup tureen 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.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Spinach + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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

Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Peas
Provide the main sweet, green flavour and body of the soup.
Vegetable stock
Supplies the liquid base that carries and softens the vegetables.
Spinach
Adds earthy flavour and colour, and thickens slightly as it breaks down.
Sweet butter rolled in flour
Flour-coated butter thickens the soup as it melts into the liquid.

The step that matters

Stewing the mixture until it reduces to a jelly. Long, slow simmering concentrates flavour and reduces the liquid, but too long or too hot can scorch the bottom of the pot. Stir occasionally and keep the heat low.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, spinach, onion, celery, flour, pepper):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, spinach, onion, celery, flour, pepper. 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

Cream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesMeatless Green Pea SoupMeatless Green Pea Soup22 recipesIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipes