Name: Duchess Green Peas
Ingredients: spring onions; 1 leaf of mint; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon castor sugar; 1 slice of butter; 1 cup water

Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Duchess Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the spring onions and mint.
In a pot, combine spring onions, mint, salt, sugar, butter, and water.
Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes, then reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes.
Stir occasionally until the peas are tender.

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.

Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Onion + minttop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mint + buttertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,592 recipes

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