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Puree of Peas

A creamy pea puree made with peas, milk, butter, flour, onion, sugar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puree of Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Drain the peas.

  2. Add sugar and cold water to the peas.

  3. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Reheat the mixture.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a separate pan and mix with flour to create a roux.

  2. Scald the milk with the onion.

  3. Remove the onion.

  4. Add the milk to the pea mixture.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and flavour of the puree once cooked and sieved.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a smooth base through the roux.
Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness to the finished puree.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, loosening the puree while mellowing its texture.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a sieve. Cooked peas hold tough skins and fibres; pressing them through a sieve removes these so the puree turns smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, onion, pepper, sugar, butter):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, onion, pepper, 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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