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Peas, Green, Boiled

Boiled green peas served with butter, salt, sugar, and optional mint.

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 ↓

Peas, Green, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose young, freshly gathered peas and shell them just before boiling.

  2. In a saucepan, bring 2 quarts of water and ¼ ounce of coarse sea salt to a boil.

  3. Skim the water well, then add the peas and boil uncovered until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat immediately to prevent breaking.

  2. Drain the peas and return them to a clean saucepan with 3 ounces of fresh butter.

  3. Sprinkle with a little salt and white sugar, then shake over low heat until the butter melts.

  4. Serve immediately, optionally adding a bunch of mint to the boiling water for flavor.

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 + 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 + minttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sweet when boiled.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth coating that carries flavor through the peas.
White sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savory salt.

The step that matters

Remove from heat immediately after the peas are tender. Peas keep cooking in their own heat, and overcooking makes them soft, mushy and prone to breaking apart. Pulling them off the heat as soon as they are tender keeps their shape and bright green colour.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Mintthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, 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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