Name: Stewed Peas and French Beans
Ingredients: 1 quart shelled green peas; 1 pint string beans, trimmed; 1 small onion, sliced thin; 2 tablespoons butter, rolled in flour; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup; 1 pint boiling water

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Peas and French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Cover the peas, beans, and onion with boiling salted water in a saucepan.
Cover the saucepan and stew for 30 minutes.
Stir in the floured butter, pepper, and ketchup.
Cover again and simmer for 15 minutes.
Serve in a deep dish.

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.

Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Peas + beanstop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together949 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 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: Form the body of the dish and soften into a tender, stewed texture.
String beans: Add bulk and a tender-crisp bite that softens during stewing.
Butter: Adds richness and, rolled in flour, thickens the stewing liquid and gives it body.
Tomato ketchup: Adds sweetness and acidity, giving the stew a mild tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring in the floured butter. Flour-coated butter must be stirred in and simmered long enough for the starch to hydrate and thicken the liquid; adding it without stirring can leave lumps and a raw floury taste.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, onion, butter, flour, pepper, tomato, ketchup):

Chickpeafits better
Black-eyed peafits better
Chestnutfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, onion, butter, flour, pepper, tomato, ketchup. 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.

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Green Peas229 recipes

Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes

Tomato Bisque61 recipes

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Stewed Peas and French Beans