Name: Plaix Pea Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart bulled peas; 4 quarts water; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons butter; Coarse sea salt to taste; Black pepper to taste; Cold bread, cut into small pieces; Minced parsley for garnish

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plaix Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

Boil the peas in 4 quarts of water until soft.
Mash the peas and mix in the flour and butter until well combined.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.

Serve

Toast the small pieces of cold bread and drop them into the soup.
Garnish with minced parsley before serving.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Peas: Form the main body of the soup as they soften and break down into a thick texture.
Flour: Thickens the soup by absorbing liquid and helping it hold a smoother body.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.

Swap the peas

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

Chickpeafits better
Chestnutfits better
Lentilsfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, bread, parsley. 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.