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Sugar Pease

A side dish of sugar peas cooked with butter, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sugar Pease

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pods and string them like string beans.

  2. Cut the pods into pieces about 1 inch long.

Cook

  1. In a pot, melt the butter and add the peas.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and add enough water to prevent burning.

  3. Stew gently for 20 to 30 minutes until tender.

  4. Serve in the sauce.

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. Butter + peastop 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. Sugar + peastop 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

Sugar peas
Provide the main vegetable, which turns tender and sweet as they stew.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the pot and into the sauce.

The step that matters

Stewing gently until tender. Adding enough water and keeping the heat gentle prevents the butter and peas from scorching. Slow stewing softens the pod fibres evenly without leaving them tough or burnt.

Swap the peas

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

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

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