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Green Pea Puree

A smooth puree made from boiled green peas blended with milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Green Pea Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Boil the green peas and milk until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and stir well.

  2. Gradually mix in the hot milk and the pea pulp.

  3. Add enough water or soup stock to achieve the desired consistency.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 flavour, colour and body of the puree once strained.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the peas and the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as its starch swells when cooked in the melted butter.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the hot milk and pea pulp. Flour must be stirred into melted butter first so each starch granule is coated by fat. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, even thickness.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour. 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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