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Peas and Lettuce

Lettuce heads stuffed with a pea and onion mixture, simmered in broth and stock, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Peas and Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Parboil the lettuce in the broth for a few minutes.

  2. Remove the centers of the lettuce heads.

Stuff and simmer

  1. Mix the green peas, flour, and minced onion together.

  2. Fill each lettuce head with the pea mixture and tie them carefully.

  3. Simmer the tied lettuces in the white stock for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Remove the strings and place the lettuces on toast.

  2. Pour the remaining sauce over the lettuces 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. Lettuce + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the edible wrapper that holds the filling while it simmers.
Green peas
Provide the main filling, adding body and a sweet, vegetal flavor.
Flour
Thickens the pea mixture so it holds together inside the lettuce.
White stock
Simmers the stuffed lettuces and forms the sauce that thickens and flavors the dish.

The step that matters

Tying the stuffed lettuce heads. If the heads are tied too loosely, the filling can escape into the stock during the hour-long simmer, leaving the lettuce hollow and the sauce cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, peas, flour):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, peas, flour. 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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