Name: Green Peas
Ingredients: ½ pound half-ripe green peas; 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt; ½ cup cold water; 1 teaspoon sugar

Why it works: Peas and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Green Peas

Ingredients

½ pound half-ripe green peas
2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
½ cup cold water
1 teaspoon sugar

Directions

Cook and cool

Cook the peas in salted water for 3 minutes.
Drain and pour cold water over them.

Serve

Fill glasses with the peas, add salt, cold water, and sugar.
If the peas absorb the liquid, it is fine.

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.

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.

Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Half-ripe green peas: Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavor of the dish.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the savory salt and the peas' natural flavor.

“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.