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Green Pea Soup

A lamb and potato soup with peas, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Peas and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,016 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Wash the lamb in cold water and place it in a soup pot with 6 quarts of cold water.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt and bring to a gentle boil over moderate heat for 2 hours.

  3. Skim the surface to remove impurities, then add 1 quart of shelled peas and 1 teaspoon of pepper.

  4. Cover and boil for 1 hour.

Add the vegetables and thicken

  1. Scrape the skins from 1 quart of small potatoes and add them to the soup.

  2. Cover the pot and boil for an additional 30 minutes.

  3. In a bowl, work together ¼ pound of butter and 2 teaspoons of flour, then add to the soup 10-12 minutes before removing from heat.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat on a dish with parsley sauce and the soup in a tureen.

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 + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Gives the soup its meaty flavor as it simmers slowly in the water.
Shelled peas
Provide the sweet, green body and flavor that defines the soup.
Small potatoes
Soften during boiling and add starch that gives the soup body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when kneaded with butter and stirred in near the end.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour clumps if dropped in raw. Working it into the butter first and stirring it in near the end lets it disperse and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, potato, butter, flour. 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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