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Green Peas Stewed

A stew of young green peas cooked with white sauce, butter, sugar, salt, onions, parsley, and liaison.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Green Peas Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the peas, white sauce, butter, sugar, salt, button onions, and tied parsley in a stewpan.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the liaison, stir quickly, 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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  2. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Young peas
Form the main body of the dish and carry its bright green flavor.
White sauce
Adds body and creaminess, coating the peas as the dish simmers.
Butter
Contributes richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the savory butter and salt.

The step that matters

Adding the liaison. A thickener stirred into hot liquid can form lumps if it is not dispersed quickly. Stirring briskly as it goes in spreads it evenly, so the stew thickens smoothly instead of clumping.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, butter, sugar, onion, parsley):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, butter, sugar, onion, parsley. 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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