Name: Ces Petits Pois
Ingredients: 1 liter fresh peas; ½ cup butter; 1 heart of lettuce or romaine; 1 medium onion; 2 teaspoons sugar; 2 egg yolks; 2 tablespoons cream; salt; pepper

Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Ces Petits Pois

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Shell the peas and wash them.

Cook

In a saucepan, combine the peas, butter, lettuce, onion, sugar, salt, and pepper.
Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the peas are tender.
Remove the onion, then mix in the egg yolks and cream.

Serve

Serve warm.

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.

Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,562 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks: Enrich the cream sauce, giving it body and a smooth, thickened texture.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and giving the peas a silky coating.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce and making it smoother.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the savory flavor of the peas and onion.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, lettuce, sugar, egg, cream, pepper):

Asparagusfits better
Leekfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, lettuce, sugar, egg, cream, pepper. 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.