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Fresh Green Peas with Olive Oil

A simple boiled pea dish flavored with onions, tomatoes, green pepper, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fresh Green Peas with Olive Oil

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the fresh green peas in equal parts plain water until half cooked.

  2. Add the chopped onions, green pepper, and tomatoes and season to taste.

  3. Add the olive oil.

  4. Continue boiling on medium heat until fully cooked.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Peas + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the dish and soften as they cook in the water.
Olive oil
Adds richness and a fruity flavor that carries through the cooked vegetables.
Onions
Build a savory, sweet base flavor as they soften during boiling.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that blend into a loose sauce around the peas.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil. Oil added while the peas are still boiling is emulsified only loosely into the water, so it floats and can taste greasy. Stirring it in well and letting it cook briefly helps it blend into the liquid.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, tomato, olive, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tomato, olive, 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.

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