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Art of Preserving

A preserved green pea dish with butter, parsley, chives, flour, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Art of Preserving

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the parsley and chives, tossing them in the butter.

  3. Sprinkle in the flour and moisten with boiling water until it covers the peas.

  4. Boil for 15 minutes until the sauce thickens.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, then reduce heat to simmer until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the walnut-sized butter and powdered sugar just before serving.

  2. Serve the peas in a warm dish, shaped like a pyramid.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

  4. Chive + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chive + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 of the dish and supply most of its texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells and sets during heating.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma and flavor to the sauce.
Chives
Adds a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavor to the sauce.
Powdered sugar
Adds a light sweetness that balances the savory herbs and salt.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be spread through the liquid and heated fully so its starch swells and thickens the sauce. Adding it in one clump or stopping the boil early leaves lumps or a thin, watery sauce.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, chive, flour, pepper, sugar, walnut):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, chive, flour, pepper, sugar, walnut. 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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