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Stewed Peas

A simple stew of peas, ham, onion, and cabbage hearts, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Peas

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan.

  2. Add the ham, peas, chopped onion, and lettuce hearts.

  3. Set the stew pan over low heat and let it stew for about 10 minutes.

  4. Add a little stock and a lump of sugar.

  5. When the peas are done, mix a little flour and butter together and add to the stew.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Arrange the tender peas around the dish and 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. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 and supply its tender, sweet flavour.
Lettuce hearts
Soften as they stew, adding moisture and a mild, sweet body to the peas.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce when mixed with butter and stirred in.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to form the thickening paste.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter thickener. Flour must be mixed with butter first and stirred in while the liquid is hot so it disperses evenly. Added as lumps or to a cold liquid, it stays clumped and the sauce turns out patchy rather than smooth.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, sugar, flour):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, sugar, flour. 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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