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Green Pea and Tomato Puree

A puree of green peas, tomatoes, and onion simmered in stock, finished with butter, flour, sugar, and parsley, served over fried bread dice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Green Pea and Tomato Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree

  1. Cook the green peas, tomatoes, and onion in weak stock for 1 hour.

  2. Rub the mixture through a colander.

  3. Return to the fire.

Finish and serve

  1. Add butter mixed with flour, sugar, and parsley.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour over fried bread-dice in a tureen.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Peas + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

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

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

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 puree and give it its green colour and vegetable flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the puree, balancing the sweetness of the peas.
Butter mixed with flour
Thickens the puree and adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Onion
Contributes savoury depth to the stock-based puree.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 minutes after adding the butter and flour. Flour thickens only when heated enough for its starch to swell. Boiling briefly after adding the butter-flour mixture cooks out the raw flour taste and sets the puree to the intended consistency.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, butter, flour, sugar, parsley, bread. 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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