Skip to main content
Main

Pea Puree

A smooth puree of boiled green peas, mint, parsley, spring onions, Velouté or béchamel, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pea Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. Boil the water and add the green peas, mint leaves, parsley, and spring onions. Cook for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the water and pound the vegetables in a mortar.

Make the puree

  1. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and add the Velouté or béchamel sauce. Mix well over low heat for 2–3 minutes.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Warm the puree in a saucepan with the fresh butter 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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Provide the main body, colour and sweet, vegetal flavour of the puree.
Velouté or béchamel sauce
Adds body and a smoother, thicker texture to the puree.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished puree.
Spring onions
Contribute mild savoury flavour during cooking.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving removes fibrous pieces and skins that pounding leaves behind, giving the smooth texture a puree needs. Skipping or rushing this step leaves a grainy result.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, mint, parsley, sauce, 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.

More pea puree recipes

Green 43Split 8Soup 3 See all 45 →

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes