Why it works: Peas and ham work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 402 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Dried Peas
Ingredients
Directions
Soak and parboil
Soak the dried peas overnight.
In the morning, drain the peas and parboil them in fresh water for a few minutes.
Cook
Drain again and place the peas in a pot with fresh water and the piece of ham or middling.
Boil until the peas are thoroughly cooked.
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.
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Peas + hamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together402 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dried peas
- Form the main body of the dish; their starch softens and thickens the cooking liquid as they cook.
- Ham or middling
- Adds savory, smoky flavor and some fat to the cooking liquid that the peas absorb.
The step that matters
Boil until the peas are thoroughly cooked. Dried peas have dense starch and tough cell walls that need sustained simmering in liquid to soften fully. Stopping early leaves them firm and chalky in the center, so keep cooking until they are fully tender.
“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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