Name: Green Pea Soup
Ingredients: 3 pints young peas, shelled; 1 quart water; 1 pint sweet milk or cream; 1-2 broken crackers; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; 1 small lump of butter

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

Shell the peas and cook them in a small kettle.
In another kettle, boil the washed pods in 1 quart of water.
After 30 minutes, strain the water from the pods into the kettle with the peas.

Finish and serve

Add the sweet milk or cream and broken crackers to the peas.
Bring the soup to a boil and season with salt, pepper, and butter.
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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,331 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Peas + milktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,309 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,887 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Young peas: Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavor of the soup.
Sweet milk or cream: Adds richness and a smoother, creamier texture to the soup.
Broken crackers: Starch that thickens the soup slightly as it heats.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a rounder mouthfeel.