Name: Petits Pois À LA Francaise
Ingredients: 2 liters of very fine peas; water; salt; butter

Why it works: Peas and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,887 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Petits Pois À LA Francaise

Ingredients

2 liters of very fine peas
water
salt
butter

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Shell the peas and rinse them under cold water.
In a pot, bring water to a boil and add a pinch of salt.

Cook and serve

Add the peas to the boiling water and cook until tender, about 5-7 minutes.
Drain the peas and return them to the pot.
Add a generous amount of butter and stir gently to coat the peas.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together4,887 recipes

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

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 dish and become tender when cooked through.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky coating that carries flavour across the peas.

“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.