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Pea Soup

A green pea soup made with butter, flour, water, salt, vegetable stock, egg yolks, served over toast.

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

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the green peas with the butter over medium heat.

  2. Sprinkle the flour over the peas and add enough water to cover.

  3. Add salt and vegetable stock, then boil until the peas are tender.

  4. Stir in the egg yolks and serve the soup over slices of toast.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Peas + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,837 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

Green peas
Form the body of the soup and give it its main flavour and substance.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour as the peas cook in it.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the soup becomes body-rich rather than watery.
Egg yolks
Stirred in at the end to enrich and thicken the soup slightly, adding richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle or scramble if the soup is at a hard boil. Stir them in gently after removing the pot from the heat or at low heat, so the soup turns smooth and creamy.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg. 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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