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Puree of Green Peas

A creamy puree made from green peas, sugar, butter, flour, milk, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puree of Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pea base

  1. In a pot, combine the drained peas, sugar, and cold water. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Rinse the mixture through a sieve and reheat it.

Add the roux and milk

  1. In a separate pan, cook the butter and flour together to form a roux.

  2. Scald the milk with the slice of onion, then remove the onion.

  3. Add the milk to the pea mixture and stir well.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Peas
Provide the main body, colour and sweet vegetable flavour of the puree.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with flour forms the roux that thickens the puree.
Flour
Thickens the puree when cooked with butter into a roux.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness, giving the puree a smoother, richer texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the roux. Cooking butter and flour together until just smooth lets the starch thicken evenly. Undercooked roux tastes raw and can leave lumps, while overheating can scorch it.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, milk, onion, 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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