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French Peas

A creamy dish of French peas with onion, butter, flour, stock, milk, sugar, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

French Peas

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the French peas and browned onion.

  2. Add the butter and flour, stirring to combine.

  3. Slowly add the stock, then the milk or cream.

  4. Stir in the powdered sugar and egg yolk.

  5. Cook for 5 minutes and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Thickens the sauce with starch as it cooks with the butter and liquid.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding richness and body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps form the base of the sauce with flour.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when heated, but if the sauce is too hot when it is added, the yolk can scramble. Add it gently and keep the heat moderate.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, flour, milk, sugar, egg. 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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