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Peas Plain Boiled

A simple boiled pea dish sweetened with sugar and flavored with mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Peas Plain Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Cook

  1. Boil water vigorously in a pot.

  2. Add coarse sea salt and loaf sugar to the boiling water.

  3. Tie the mint in a bunch and add it to the pot.

  4. Add the peas and cook until done.

Drain and serve

  1. Strain the peas using a fine sieve and ensure they are drained well.

  2. Chop the mint and sprinkle it on the sides of the serving dish.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Forms the body of the dish and supplies most of its flavour and texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the natural flavour of the peas.
Mint
Releases a fresh aroma into the cooking water and onto the finished dish.

The step that matters

Cook the peas until done. Peas turn from bright green to dull olive and become mushy when overcooked. Cooking them briefly in vigorously boiling water helps keep their colour and firm texture. Draining them well afterward keeps the dish from tasting watery.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, sugar):

  1. Mintthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, sugar. 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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