Name: Green Pea Soup of India
Ingredients: 3 pints fresh green peas, shelled; ½ pound butter; 1 handful parsley, chopped; 1 handful green onions, chopped; Consommé (stock) to taste; Bread for sippets, cut into dice and fried in butter

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Green Pea Soup of India

Ingredients

3 pints fresh green peas, shelled
½ pound butter
1 handful parsley, chopped
1 handful green onions, chopped
Consommé (stock) to taste
Bread for sippets, cut into dice and fried in butter

Directions

Make the soup

Melt the butter over low heat in a saucepan.
Add the peas, parsley, and green onions, and cook until thoroughly stewed.
Pound the mixture in a mortar or rub through a colander.
Return the mixture to the saucepan and add enough stock to reach your desired consistency.
Keep the soup on low heat to simmer, avoiding boiling to preserve the green color.

Serve

Just before serving, add fried bread sippets.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).
Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,885 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,460 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

Green peas: Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavor of the soup.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Parsley: Contributes fresh, herbal aroma and bright green flavor.
Green onions: Add mild onion sharpness and aroma to the base.

The step that matters

Keep the soup at a gentle simmer. Boiling can dull the bright green color of the peas and herbs, as chlorophyll breaks down under prolonged high heat. Gentle heat keeps the soup green and smooth.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, onion, bread):

Chickpeafits better
Beansfits better
Lentilsfits about as well
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, onion, 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Green Peas229 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Green Pea Soup of India