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Canned Peas

A simple side dish of peas cooked in salted water, milk or cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Canned Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the peas in a colander.

  2. Boil the peas in plenty of salted hot water for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Drain the peas again.

Finish

  1. In a saucepan, combine the peas with milk or cream and butter.

  2. Cook until tender.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Peas + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,309 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. 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

Peas
Form the body of the dish, softening into a tender texture when heated.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the peas a softer, creamier coating.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook until tender. Heat softens the peas' cell walls and starches gradually. Cooking in milk or cream needs gentle heat and attention, because the dairy can scorch on the bottom of the pan and the peas can turn mushy if overcooked.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter. 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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