Name: Pea Salad
Ingredients: 1 can French peas; 1 cup peanuts, husk removed and chopped fine; mayonnaise dressing; cress leaves

Why it works: Peas and peanut work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Pea Salad

Ingredients

1 can French peas
1 cup peanuts, husk removed and chopped fine
mayonnaise dressing
cress leaves

Directions

Prepare the filling

Drain the can of French peas.
In a bowl, combine the peas and chopped peanuts.

Assemble and serve

Spoon the mixture into mashed potato nests.
Cover with mayonnaise dressing.
Serve on a bed of cress leaves.

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.

Peas + peanuttop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

French peas: Provide the main bulk, mild sweetness and tender texture of the salad.
Peanuts: Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft peas.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds moisture and richness, binding the peas and peanuts together with its fat and emulsion.

“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.