Skip to main content
Main

Green-pea Soup

A lamb and pea soup with potatoes, butter, and flour, simmered for hours.

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

Why it works: Peas and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,016 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Green-pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the lamb in cold water and place it in a soup pot with 6 quarts of cold water.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt and bring to a gentle boil over moderate heat for 2 hours.

  3. Skim the soup clear, then add 1 quart of shelled peas and 1 teaspoon of pepper.

  4. Cover and boil for 30 minutes.

  5. Scrape the skins from 1 quart of small young potatoes and add them to the soup.

  6. Cover the pot and boil for another 30 minutes.

  7. Work together 4 ounces of butter and 2 teaspoons of flour, then add to the soup 10 to 12 minutes before removing from heat.

  8. Serve the meat on a dish with parsley sauce and the soup in a tureen.

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. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Lamb
Simmered for two hours to release flavour and body into the broth.
Shelled peas
Cook down to give the soup its green colour and sweet, vegetal flavour.
Small young potatoes
Soften during cooking and add starch that thickens the soup slightly.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Worked into butter to thicken the soup as it heats.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour must be worked smoothly into the butter first and added near the end; if dropped in raw or boiled too long, it can clump or lose its thickening power.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, potato, butter, flour. 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

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes