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Peas, Boiled Green

Boiled green peas served hot with butter and optional mint garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Peas, Boiled Green

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the peas and wash them well in cold water.

  2. Drain the peas.

Cook

  1. Put the peas into a saucepan with boiling water, salt, and sugar.

  2. Boil quickly over high heat with the lid uncovered.

  3. Optionally, boil a small bunch of mint with the peas.

  4. When tender, pour the peas into a colander.

Serve

  1. Transfer the peas to a hot serving dish.

  2. Place a piece of butter in the center of the dish.

  3. Optionally, garnish the peas with mint.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Walnut + minttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Peas + walnuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the dish and provide its fresh, vegetal flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the hot peas.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the peas' natural savouriness.
Salt
Seasons the cooking water so the peas taste seasoned throughout.

The step that matters

Boil quickly over high heat with the lid uncovered. Fast boiling in an open pan keeps the peas bright green and stops them turning dull and olive-coloured. Overcooking softens them into mush, so they should be drained as soon as they are tender.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, peas, butter, walnut):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, peas, butter, walnut. 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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