Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Pea Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the pea pods and place them in a kettle.
Cover with cold water and boil for 2 hours.
Strain the mixture and return the water to the kettle.
Add enough milk to achieve the desired consistency without making it look white.
Mash some cooked peas through a colander to thicken the soup.
Add butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper to taste.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,331 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Milk + peastop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,309 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Flour and butter 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
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, pepper):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Milletfits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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