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Small Pearl Onions and Peas in Cream Sauce

Easy side dish that goes with any fish, beef, or chicken main course.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,460 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6
Prep4 min
Cook14 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Bring a pan of boiling water to a boil. Add the frozen pearl onions and cook for 3 minutes, then add the frozen peas and cook 2 minutes more. Drain well.

  2. While the vegetables cook, melt the sweet cream butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Whisk in the all-purpose flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute until bubbling.

  4. Slowly whisk in the heavy cream and whole milk. Simmer over medium-low heat, stirring often, for 4 minutes until thickened.

  5. Stir in the black pepper, then add the drained onions and peas. Cook for 2 minutes until heated through, then serve hot.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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.

  1. Onion + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,460 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,463 recipes

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

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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