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Pur&E of Green Peas

A smooth puree of green peas, onion, butter, flour, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Pur&E of Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pea liquid

  1. Boil the empty pods in salted water for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain out the pods.

  3. Add the peas and sugar to the water.

  4. Boil gently until the peas are very soft.

  5. Rub the mixture through a fine colander.

  6. Add 1 cup of the cooking water.

Finish the puree

  1. Add salt and pepper.

  2. Heat over the fire.

  3. Stir in the floured butter until mixed.

  4. Add the cream.

  5. Stir for 3 minutes.

  6. Pour into a dish lined with strips of fried bread.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas (in the method)
Provide the main body and flavour of the puree once softened and rubbed smooth.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the puree.
Flour
Thickens the puree as it heats, giving it body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the puree's texture.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine colander. Pushing the very soft peas through a fine sieve removes skins and fibres, which is what gives the puree a smooth, even texture rather than a grainy one.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, sugar, pepper, 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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