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Plain Puree Op Green Peas

A simple puree of boiled green peas flavored with butter, pepper, paprika, cayenne, sugar, mint, and served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plain Puree Op Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Boil the peas until tender, then rub them through a colander or pass them through a vegetable press.

Season and heat

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter with pepper, paprika, cayenne, sugar, and minced mint leaves.

  2. Stir in the pulped peas and toss with a fork until very hot.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot platter with triangles of fried bread around the base.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  5. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 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

Green peas
Form the main body of the puree once cooked and pulped.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the warm puree.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness to balance the savory seasonings.
Mint leaves
Contribute a fresh, aromatic note to the puree.

The step that matters

Pulping the peas. Rubbing or pressing the cooked peas removes skins and fibers, giving a smooth puree rather than a grainy one. Peas must be fully tender first, since firm peas will not pass through the sieve cleanly.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, pepper, sugar, bread):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, pepper, sugar, bread. 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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