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Boiled Green Peas

A simple boiled green peas dish seasoned with mint, green onion, parsley, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Boiled Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather peas early in the morning while wet with dew.

  2. Shell and rinse the peas in cold water, skimming off any defective ones.

Cook

  1. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil.

  2. Add the salt and bouquet of mint, green onion, and parsley.

  3. Add the peas and cook until tender.

  4. Remove the bouquet.

  5. Drain the peas.

Serve

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

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

  2. Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh green peas
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sweet as they cook.
Fresh parsley
Adds a fresh, green aroma to the cooking water.
Fresh mint
Adds a cool, aromatic herbal flavor to the cooking water.

The step that matters

Add the peas and cook until tender. Peas turn from bright green to dull olive if overcooked, and they lose their sweet flavor and soft texture. Watching for tenderness rather than time keeps color and sweetness intact.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, mint, 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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