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Green Peas Stewed

A stew of green peas, lettuce, onion, butter, and optional egg, garnished with mint and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Green Peas Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Combine peas, lettuce, and onion in a stewpan without adding water.

  2. Add butter, salt, and pepper, then stew gently for 2 hours.

  3. Beat the egg and stir it into the mixture.

  4. Add more butter if preferred.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in gravy before serving.

  2. Garnish with chopped fresh 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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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 stew and provide its sweet, vegetal flavor.
Lettuce
Softens during stewing and adds moisture and body to the mixture.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it softens in the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewed vegetables.
Egg
Beaten and stirred in, it can thicken the mixture slightly as it sets with heat.

The step that matters

Stew gently without water. Peas, lettuce, and onion release their own liquid as they cook. Gentle heat lets them soften and form a moist base without scorching, since the pan has no added water to protect the bottom.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, butter, pepper, egg, mint. 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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