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Green Peas

A simple dish of boiled green peas seasoned with salt, butter, pepper, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

Cook the peas

  1. Shell the peas and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add enough boiling water to cover the peas and sprinkle in the salt.

  3. Cook the peas until tender; early peas take about 30 minutes, while late peas may take up to 1 hour.

Dress and serve

  1. Once soft, drain the peas and dress with butter and pepper.

  2. For a richer flavor, add cream if desired.

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and a silky, rich mouthfeel to the cooked peas.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavor when added.

The step that matters

Cook the peas until tender. Peas vary in age, so cooking time can range widely. Undercooked peas stay starchy and firm, while overcooking makes them mushy and dull in color. Test by tasting rather than relying only on the clock.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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 →

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