Skip to main content
Main

Green Peas

A simple boiled green peas dish seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, sugar, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Green Peas

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pods before shelling.

  2. Shell the peas.

Cook

  1. Cover the fresh green pods with boiling water and cook for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove the pods and add the peas to the water.

  3. Boil the peas until tender.

  4. Let the water boil nearly away.

Season and finish

  1. Season with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Optionally add a little sugar and sweet cream.

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.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  4. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh green peas
The main vegetable, giving the dish its sweet flavor and tender texture when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded flavor over the cooked peas.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the flavor of the peas.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, boosting the natural sweetness of the peas.

The step that matters

Let the water boil nearly away. Reducing the cooking liquid concentrates the flavor and leaves the peas coated in little liquid. If the pan boils dry, the peas can scorch and stick, so watch the pan closely near the end.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peasthe original

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

More green peas recipes

Boiled 92Stewed 36Preserved 26Creamed 22Soup 14French 13 See all 150 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes