Skip to main content
Main

To Cook Peas

A dish of peas cooked with butter, lettuce, onion, sugar, water, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

To Cook Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell and wash the peas, or use good canned peas.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, combine peas, butter, lettuce leaves, onion, salt, pepper, sugar, and water.

  2. Cook slowly over moderate heat, stirring occasionally. If water evaporates too much, add 1 more tablespoon of water.

  3. When done, remove the onion and lettuce.

  4. Add cream or milk and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

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 + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Form the body of the dish, cooking down to a tender, soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the peas a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Lettuce
Contributes moisture and a mild sweetness as it softens during slow cooking.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and creaminess, thickening the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the cream or milk and cooking for 30 minutes. Dairy can curdle or scorch if it boils hard or sticks to the pan. Cooking slowly over moderate heat, with occasional stirring, keeps the sauce smooth and prevents the bottom from burning.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lettuce, onion, pepper, sugar, cream. 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesCreamy Lettuce SoupCreamy Lettuce Soup8 recipesLettuce SoupLettuce Soup8 recipes