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Baked Dried Peas

A baked dish of soaked dried peas mixed with bacon, mashed, and baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,589 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Dried Peas

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Pick over the peas.

  2. Wash the peas.

  3. Soak the peas overnight in cold water.

  4. Drain the peas.

Make the mash

  1. Place the peas in a pot with the meat, which should be cleaned, and cover the pot.

  2. Boil gently, removing the scum as it rises.

  3. When the peas are soft, drain them.

  4. Mash the peas.

Bake and fry

  1. Transfer the mashed peas to a baking dish.

  2. Smooth the top of the mashed peas.

  3. Place the meat on top of the mashed peas.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

  5. Strain the liquid from the peas.

  6. Thicken the liquid with 4 to 5 tablespoons of cornmeal.

  7. Boil gently for about an hour.

  8. Once cooled, slice the mixture.

  9. Fry the sliced mixture.

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 + porktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 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

Dried peas
Form the main body of the dish, and their starch thickens as they cook and mash.
Cornmeal (in the method)
Thickens the cooking liquid as its starch swells with heat.
Bacon or salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the peas as they cook and brown.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before slicing. The starch in the thickened mixture sets as it cools, giving it enough firmness to hold its shape. Slicing it while still hot would likely cause it to break apart.

“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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