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Garnish, Green Peas for

A buttery, sweetened green peas garnish served with cutlets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Peas and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,331 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Garnish, Green Peas for

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Boil the peas until tender, about 15 minutes.

  2. Drain the peas until completely dry.

Season and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the peas with butter, salt, pepper, and sugar.

  2. Shake over low heat for 5 to 10 minutes.

  3. Serve the peas in the center of a dish of cutlets.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Young green peas
Form the dish itself; boiling softens them until tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the peas and carrying their flavour.
Sugar
Adds gentle sweetness that balances the salt and pepper.

The step that matters

Drain the peas until completely dry. Surface water dilutes the butter and seasoning so they do not cling to the peas. Dry peas take up the butter and sugar more evenly while shaking, instead of steaming in the liquid.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sugar. 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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