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 ↓
Green Peas
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the peas thoroughly.
Bring a pot of water to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt.
Cook and season
Add the peas to the boiling water and cook until tender.
Stir in 1 teaspoon of sugar and let them sit for 2-3 minutes.
Drain the water, add ¼ teaspoon of salt, and pour 2 tablespoons of melted butter over the peas.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,887 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,928 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh green peas
- Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender texture.
- Sugar
- Adds a touch of sweetness that rounds out the peas' natural grassy flavour.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the peas a silky coating.
The step that matters
Cook the peas until tender. Peas go from bright green and tender to dull and mushy within minutes. Pulling them as soon as they are tender preserves colour and texture, and draining promptly stops residual heat from overcooking them.
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter):
- Almondfits better
- Pecansfits better
- Filbertfits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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