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Plain Boiled Peas a L'americaine

A simple boiled pea dish flavored with mint, onions, stock, sugar, salt, and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Plain Boiled Peas a L'americaine

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Boil the peas with the bouquet of mint and tied onions in white stock.

  2. Add sugar and salt.

  3. Let them stew until tender.

  4. Mix flour with butter until smooth.

  5. Remove the onions and mint.

  6. Stir in the flour and butter mixture.

  7. Simmer gently until the desired consistency is reached.

  8. Add cream or more stock if too thick.

  9. Adjust seasoning with salt and sugar if needed.

Prepare and serve

  1. Cut bread into rounds or triangles for croutons.

  2. Fry until golden.

  3. Use egg white and flour to paste the croutons around the edge of the dish.

  4. When ready to serve, pile the peas in the center of the croutons.

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 + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Young peas
Form the main body of the dish and, as they cook, soften into a tender, sweet base.
White stock
Cooks the peas and provides the liquid that gives the finished dish its savoury flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the peas take on a smooth, spoonable consistency.
Butter
Enriches the thickened liquid, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Onions
Flavour the cooking liquid as they boil with the peas, then are removed.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the desired consistency is reached. Flour thickens as it heats, so a hard boil can scorch the bottom or break the smooth texture. Gentle simmering lets the starch swell evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, onion, sugar, flour, butter, cream, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, onion, sugar, flour, butter, cream, 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.

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