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Green Peas Soup, Without Meat

A creamy soup made from mashed green peas, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, and butter, served with young peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Green Peas Soup, Without Meat

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Peas Soup, Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea base

  1. Boil the peas in 3 quarts of water until tender.

  2. Drain the peas and mash them.

  3. Mix the mashed peas with 5 pints of the cooking liquid.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat.

  5. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  6. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

Add the vegetables and finish

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter.

  2. Sauté the cucumbers, lettuce, and onions until soft.

  3. Add the sautéed vegetables to the strained pea stock.

  4. Season the soup with salt and pepper.

  5. Bring the soup to a gentle boil.

  6. Add the young peas.

  7. 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.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Peas + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 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

Green peas
Provide the main body, flavour and thickening once mashed and strained into the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, and carries flavour from the sautéed vegetables.
Cucumbers
Add a mild, fresh flavour and a light, cool character to the soup.
Lettuce hearts
Soften during sautéing and add mild sweetness and body to the soup.
Onions
Build savoury depth through gentle sautéing, adding sweetness as they soften.

The step that matters

Strain through a fine sieve. Straining removes fibrous pea skins and any remaining lumps, giving the soup a smooth, even texture rather than a grainy one.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, cucumber, lettuce, onion):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, cucumber, lettuce, onion. 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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