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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from canned green peas, sugar, bacon rinds, mint, and served with fried bread squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Green Pea Soup

Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the can of green peas and reserve 2 teaspoons for decoration.

  2. In an enamel bowl, combine the remaining peas and liquid with sugar, bacon rinds, pepper, salt, baking soda, and cold water.

Cook and strain

  1. Gently simmer until soft.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve back into the bowl.

Flavour and serve

  1. Add the tied bunch of fresh mint and reheat the soup.

  2. Remove the mint before serving.

  3. Serve with fried tiny squares of bread.

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 + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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 and vegetable flavour of the soup once cooked and sieved.
Bacon rinds
Add savoury, smoky flavour to the simmering liquid.
Baking soda
Raises the pH, helping the peas soften and keep their bright green colour.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the savoury and vegetal notes.
Fresh mint
Adds a cool, aromatic herbal fragrance infused into the hot soup.

The step that matters

Gently simmer until soft. A hard boil can break up the peas unevenly and dull their green colour. Gentle heat softens them fully so they purée smoothly when pushed through the sieve.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Mintthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, sugar, pepper, bread. 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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