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Skillet Sugar Snap Peas & Water Chestnuts

Delicious vegetable flavor combination sautéed in brown butter.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and water chestnut work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 170 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6
Prep5 min
Cook12 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (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. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat.

  2. Add the finely sliced onion and cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes until softened and lightly golden.

  3. Add the sugar snap peas and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes until bright green and crisp-tender. If using frozen peas, add them straight from the freezer and cook 1 to 2 minutes longer.

  4. Add the drained water chestnuts and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes until heated through.

  5. Season with black pepper, toss well, and 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. Pepper + water chestnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Onion + water chestnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cream + sugartop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, sugar, pepper, water chestnut):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Spinachabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, sugar, pepper, water chestnut. 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).