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Green Pea Soup

A soup made from peas, stock, lettuce, onion, mint, cucumber, butter, and flour.

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

Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber 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 Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine 1 quart of stock, all the vegetables, and the remaining peas, then simmer until tender.

  2. Press the mixture through a sieve to create a smooth soup.

  3. Add the reserved stock and bring to a boil.

  4. Mix the butter and flour together, then stir into the soup just before serving.

Serve

  1. Boil the reserved teacup of peas separately, then place them in a serving tureen.

  2. Pour the soup over the peas and serve with toasted 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. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mint + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

Peas
Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavor of the soup.
Lettuce
Adds soft body and a mild, sweet vegetal note as it cooks down.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly, giving it a smoother, more velvety texture.
Stock
Supplies the liquid base that carries the flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and flour mixture. Flour needs to be fully blended and heated in the soup to thicken it smoothly; if it is added as lumps or the soup is not hot enough, it may stay grainy or floury-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, mint, cucumber, butter, flour, 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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