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Squabs with Green Peas

A dish of squabs braised with butter, water, bay leaves, thyme, cloves, peppercorns, garlic, salt, pepper, and boiled peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Squabs with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squabs

  1. Clean and separate the squabs in half.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the squabs and cook until nicely colored.

Braise

  1. Pour in the water.

  2. Add bay leaves, thyme, cloves, peppercorns, garlic, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cook for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain and strain the cooking liquid.

  2. Add the boiled peas to the liquid and serve with the squabs.

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.

  1. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Squabs
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow cooking in liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and helps the squabs brown in the pan.
Boiled peas
Add body and sweetness to the sauce made from the strained cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the squabs. Cooking the squabs in butter until nicely colored builds flavor through browning, which the later simmering liquid carries into the sauce.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (squab, butter, thyme, clove, garlic, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against squab, butter, thyme, clove, garlic, pepper. 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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