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Puree of Green Pea

A smooth puree made from cooked green peas, butter, flour, stock, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Puree of Green Pea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Cook the peas in water until tender; drain and rub through a sieve.

Make the puree

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until combined.

  2. Add the stock and stir until thickened.

  3. Mix in the peas and the water they were cooked in; simmer for five minutes.

Serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, then serve.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Provides fat and rich flavor, and forms the base of the thickening paste with flour.
Flour
Thickens the liquid when cooked with butter and stock, giving the puree body.
White stock
Forms the main liquid, adding savory flavor that thins the puree to a pourable texture.
Green peas
Supply the main flavor and color, and their starch helps thicken the finished puree.

The step that matters

Adding the stock to the butter and flour. Flour clumps easily in hot fat. Adding the stock gradually while stirring keeps the mixture smooth, so the sauce thickens evenly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, veal, flour, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal, flour, pepper. 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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