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Green Pea Soup

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

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

Prepare the soup

  1. Reserve 1 quart of stock and 1 teacup of peas.

  2. Combine the remaining stock and all vegetables in a pot and simmer until tender.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve into a clean pot.

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

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix the butter and flour together, then add to the soup if it's not thick enough.

  2. Boil the reserved peas separately, then place them in a serving tureen.

  3. 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

Old peas
Give the soup its main body and sweet, green flavour as they soften.
Lettuce
Adds soft leafy body and a mild, fresh flavour to the puree.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the soup if it is not thick enough.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour. Flour must be cooked in fat and whisked in well, or it forms lumps and gives a raw, pasty taste. Add it gradually and let the soup boil briefly so the starch thickens fully.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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