Name: Peas
Ingredients: 2 cups young green peas; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 slice fresh butter; optional: small bunch of mint

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 ↓

Peas

Ingredients

2 cups young green peas
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 slice fresh butter
optional: small bunch of mint

Directions

Prepare

Shell the peas and wash them thoroughly.
Drain the peas in a colander.

Cook

Boil plenty of water and add the peas and salt.
Cook until tender, about 30 minutes for young peas.
Drain again and place in a dish with a slice of butter.
If desired, boil mint with the peas, mince it finely, and serve it on the side.

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 + minttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,887 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + minttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Young green peas: Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender, soft texture.
Fresh butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts over the hot 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.