Name: To Jlew Peas with Lettuces
Ingredients: 2 cups shelled peas; 1 head of lettuce; 2 tablespoons fresh butter; ½ cup good gravy; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2 tablespoons flour; 1 tablespoon fresh mint, shredded

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 ↓

To Jlew Peas with Lettuces

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

Boil the peas in hard water with salt until tender.
Drain the peas in a sieve.

Cook the lettuce

Slice the lettuce and fry it in fresh butter.

Make the soup

Combine the peas and lettuce in a pan with gravy, pepper, and salt.
Thicken the mixture with flour and butter.
Add shredded mint and serve in a soup dish.

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 + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together569 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,372 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Shelled peas: Form the main body of the soup and give it its pea flavour and substance.
Lettuce: Softens in butter to add tender bulk and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavour when frying the lettuce and enriching the thickening.
Flour: Thickens the liquid with butter into a smooth, body-giving base for the soup.
Gravy: Supplies savoury liquid and depth of flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked in fat and stirred into the hot liquid to avoid lumps and a raw starchy taste. Cooking the starch lets it swell and thicken the soup evenly.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, lettuce, butter, pepper, flour):

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Parsleyfits better
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, butter, pepper, flour. 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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To Jlew Peas with Lettuces