Name: Stewed Peas
Ingredients: 2 cups peas; water; pieces of roast beef or mutton bones

Why it works: Peas and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,044 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Peas

Ingredients

2 cups peas
water
pieces of roast beef or mutton bones

Directions

Add peas and enough water to cover them to a pot.
Cook slowly until the peas are tender.
Add pieces of roast beef or mutton bones when the peas are nearly done.
Continue cooking until everything is heated through.

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.

Peas + beeftop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,044 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peas: Form the main body of the dish, softening into a tender, stew-like texture as they cook.
Roast beef or mutton bones: Add meaty flavour to the stewing liquid as they heat through with the peas.

“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.