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Ragout of Spare Ribs and Peas

A ragout of spare ribs, peas, butter, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Ragout of Spare Ribs and Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the spareribs into small pieces, leaving two or three ribs in each piece.

  2. Heat butter in a saucepan.

Stew

  1. Add spareribs, mint or herbs, salt, pepper, and enough boiling water to cover the spareribs.

  2. Stew for 30 minutes.

  3. Add peas and heat thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Serve the ragout with the spareribs in the center and the peas arranged neatly around them.

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. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spareribs
Provide the meat, which becomes tender as it stews in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the saucepan before the meat goes in.
Peas
Add sweetness and color, heated through at the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Stew for 30 minutes. The spareribs must be fully covered with boiling water and stewed gently. Covering keeps the meat submerged and cooking evenly, and steady simmering breaks down connective tissue so the meat turns tender rather than tough.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, 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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