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Green Peas with Bacon

A stew of peas, bacon, and seasonings simmered together.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Green Peas with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Combine the peas, brown sauce, brown gravy, sugar, onions, and parsley in a stewpan.

  2. Boil for about 10 minutes.

  3. Braise the bacon, cut it into ¼-inch dice, and add it to the peas.

  4. Remove the onions and parsley.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with butter and ½ teaspoon of sugar.

  2. Mix well and stew for 20 minutes before serving.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  2. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Form the main body of the dish and provide its fresh, green flavour.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury depth and moisture, giving the peas a rich, coating liquid.
Bacon
Contributes salty, smoky fat that flavours the peas as it renders.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, glossy finish and rounded flavour.

The step that matters

Stewing for 20 minutes after adding the butter and sugar. Stewing lets the sauce reduce and the flavours meld, while the peas soften gently. Boiling too hard or too long can toughen the bacon and dull the bright green colour of the peas.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, sugar, onion, parsley, butter. 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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