Skip to main content
Main

To Stew Green Peas

A stew of green peas, cabbage lettuce, mint, ham, onion, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
To Stew Green Peas

Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Stew Green Peas

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a stewpan, combine the chopped lettuce, green peas, and chopped mint.

  2. Add pepper and salt, then mix in the butter without bruising the peas.

Stew

  1. Pour in the pump water, add the ham and onion, and stew over low heat until tender, about 20 minutes.

  2. Shake the pan constantly to prevent burning.

Finish

  1. Remove the ham and onion, then stir in flour-coated butter and cream.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, then add the pounded sugar.

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.

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.

  1. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the bulk of the stew and give it its sweet, fresh flavour and tender body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, thickened texture to the finished stew.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and with flour helps thicken the stew.
Lettuce hearts
Soften during stewing, adding moisture and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Shake the pan constantly while stewing. Without constant movement, the starches and sugars in the peas, lettuce and cream can settle and scorch on the base of the pan, giving a burnt taste.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, lettuce, peas, pepper, egg, butter, ham):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, lettuce, peas, pepper, egg, butter, ham. 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

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipes