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Green Pea Timbales

A simple bread pudding made with green peas, butter, milk, and eggs, baked in a pan.

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 ↓

Green Pea Timbales

for 8 pupils

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Open the can of peas and empty the contents into bowls, one for each 8 pupils.

  2. Divide the butter into sauce plates, one for each 8 pupils.

  3. Place the sauce plates over a saucepan of boiling water.

  4. Cut the stale bread into large chunks and place 4 chunks on each plate.

  5. Pour 1 cup of milk into each bowl.

  6. Pour water into bowls as needed.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  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

Eggs
Set when heated, giving the timbale its firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that the eggs set into a tender custard.
Stale bread
Soaks up liquid and gives the timbale body and a softer, light texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, mouthfeel and a rounder flavour.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, egg, milk, flour, 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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