Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus Soup, with Green Peas

A vegetable soup made with asparagus, green peas, onion, butter, and vegetable broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Asparagus and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 808 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup, with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Trim the asparagus and cut it into small pieces.

  2. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté the onion until translucent.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the asparagus and green peas, then pour in the vegetable broth.

  2. Simmer for 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

  3. Blend the soup until smooth, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

  3. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 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

Asparagus
Forms the bulk of the soup and gives it its green, vegetal flavour.
Green peas
Adds body and natural sweetness, helping thicken the blended soup.
Vegetable broth
Provides the liquid that softens the vegetables and carries the flavour.
Onion
Builds a savoury base of flavour as it softens in the butter.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the soup a rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Blend the soup until smooth. Blending breaks the cooked vegetable cell walls so the soup becomes creamy rather than gritty. Blending only after the vegetables are fully tender gives the smoothest result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, peas, butter, pepper):

  1. Cauliflowerfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, peas, butter, 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

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesAsparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipes