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Puree of Green Peas, for Garniture

A smooth puree of cooked green peas mixed with cream sauce, salt, pepper, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Puree of Green Peas, for Garniture

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the green peas until tender, then drain them.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the peas with the cream sauce, salt, pepper, and sugar.

  3. Mix well and pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the puree to the saucepan to keep warm.

  2. Before serving, add the butter and stir until melted.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and flavor of the puree once cooked and passed through a sieve.
Cream sauce
Adds moisture and richness, giving the puree a smooth, silky texture.
Butter
Adds fat and a glossy finish when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a fine sieve. Straining breaks down and removes fibrous pea skins, so the puree becomes smooth rather than grainy. Skipping or rushing this step leaves a coarse texture that cannot be fixed later.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sauce, pepper, sugar, butter. 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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