Skip to main content
Soup

Cream of Peas

A creamy pea soup made with canned peas, water, cloves, butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Cream of Peas

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil peas, salt, pepper, and cloves in water.

  2. Mash and strain the mixture.

  3. Add butter and flour, and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the cream and serve.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peas + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together739 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

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

Peas
Provide the main body, flavor, and thickness of the soup once mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, silkier texture at the end.

The step that matters

Add butter and flour, and bring to a boil. Flour must be fully incorporated and brought to a boil so its starch swells and thickens the soup; otherwise the soup stays thin or tastes raw and floury.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, cream, butter, 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

Meatless 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 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipes