Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Pea Puree
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the peas
In the morning, boil the soaked peas in 2 quarts of cold water for 3 hours, adding water as needed to maintain 1½ quarts.
Rub the cooked peas through a sieve until smooth, then return to the kettle.
Finish and serve
Season with salt, pepper, butter, flour mixed with a little cold water, and sugar.
Just before serving, stir in the cream or milk.
Serve with croutons or diced fried bread.
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.
-
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together804 recipes
Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Dried or split peas
- Form the main body of the puree once cooked and sieved.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the puree.
- Flour
- Thickens the puree so it holds a smooth, spoonable body.
- Cream or milk
- Adds richness and softens the flavour, stirred in at the end.
The step that matters
Mixing the flour with cold water first. Flour dropped into hot liquid clumps. Mixing it with a little cold water into a slurry lets it disperse evenly, so the puree thickens smoothly without lumps.
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, flour, sugar, cream, bread):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, sugar, cream, 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.
More pea puree recipes
You might also like
Brown Bread461 recipes
Green Peas229 recipes
White Bread80 recipes
Bread Omelette60 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.