Name: Salade Aux Petits Pois
Ingredients: 1 pint cold boiled green peas; 2 teaspoons olive oil; 1 teaspoon vinegar; powdered sugar (to taste); tender heads of green mint (for garnish); white lettuce hearts or cucumber (for garnish)

Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,137 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Salade Aux Petits Pois

Ingredients

1 pint cold boiled green peas
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon vinegar
powdered sugar (to taste)
tender heads of green mint (for garnish)
white lettuce hearts or cucumber (for garnish)

Directions

Place the cold boiled peas in a salad bowl.
Sprinkle a little powdered sugar over the peas.
Pour the olive oil and vinegar over the peas.
Garnish with tender heads of green mint.
Arrange white lettuce hearts or sliced cucumber around the edge.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Peas + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,066 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).
Mint + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together569 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas: Form the bulk of the salad and provide its main texture and body.
Olive oil: Adds fat and a smooth richness that coats the peas.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Powdered sugar: Adds a little sweetness to offset the acidity of the vinegar.

Flavor stand-ins for the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, olive, vinegar, sugar, lettuce):

Tarragonbetter flavor fit
Capersbetter flavor fit
Peppermintabout as good a flavor fit
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, olive, vinegar, sugar, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.