Name: Green Peas with Bacon
Ingredients: ¼ pound lean bacon, parboiled; 3 pounds green peas; 1 quart boiling broth; 1 bunch parsley; 2 green onions; 1 head lettuce; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; 1 pinch sugar

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Green Peas with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

Cut the parboiled bacon into small square pieces and place them in a saucepan.
Add the green peas and moisten with boiling broth.
Set the pan over high heat.
Add the parsley, green onions, and lettuce.
Season with salt, pepper, and sugar.
Cook thoroughly.

Finish and serve

Remove the parsley.
Serve with braised lettuce around the dish.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,562 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean bacon: Adds savory fat and flavor that seasons the peas as it renders.
Green peas: Form the main body of the dish, providing sweet, tender texture when cooked.
Boiling broth: Moistens the peas and carries flavor while they cook through.
Lettuce: Softens when braised, adding gentle body and mild sweetness.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, onion, lettuce, pepper, sugar):

Chickpeafits better
Black-eyed peafits better
Lentilsfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, onion, lettuce, pepper, sugar. 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.