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Peas Pudding

A pudding made from split peas, water, salt, butter, and egg yolk, boiled and blended until smooth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,887 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Peas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Dry the split peas by the fire.

  2. Tie the peas loosely in a cloth and soak them in warm water.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the peas for 2 hours until tender.

  2. Wash the peas with salt and butter, then add the egg yolk and mix until smooth.

  3. Tie the mixture in the cloth again and boil for 1 hour.

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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Peas + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Form the bulk of the pudding, becoming soft and thick when boiled until tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder, helping the mashed peas set into a cohesive, sliceable pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the mixture in the cloth again and boil for 1 hour. The cloth must be tied firmly enough to hold the mixture together while it cooks, otherwise it can loosen, let water in, and yield a soggy, crumbling pudding. Gentle, steady boiling helps the egg set the mixture evenly.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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