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Pea Soup

A veal and bacon soup with green peas and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pea Soup

Why it works: Mint and peas 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 ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the veal and bacon into pieces and place them in a soup kettle with the mint and water.

  2. Boil and skim the surface well until the meat is tender.

  3. Strain the broth and add the young green peas.

  4. Boil until the peas are completely dissolved.

Finish and serve

  1. In another pot, boil the 2 quarts of green peas with a sprig of mint and sugar.

  2. Add the boiled peas to the soup liquor 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.

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. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Veal + peastop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Veal + minttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together129 recipes

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

  4. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Breaks down during long simmering to give the broth body and savory depth.
Bacon
Renders fat and adds smoky, salty flavor to the broth.
Green peas
Dissolve into the broth to thicken it and give the soup its color and sweet, vegetal flavor.
White sugar
Adds a little sweetness that rounds out the flavor of the peas.

The step that matters

Boil and skim the surface well until the meat is tender. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would cloud the broth and taste bitter, giving a clearer, cleaner soup. Simmering gently keeps the broth clear while collagen in the veal breaks down.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Mintthe original
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, peas, sugar. 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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