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Green Peas, Saute with Bacon

A sautéed green pea dish flavored with bacon, shallots, white broth, and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 173 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Green Peas, Saute with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the bacon and shallots

  1. Sauté the diced bacon with the chopped shallots until golden.

  2. Pour off some fat and add the white broth.

Simmer the peas

  1. Add the bouquet of sweet herbs and the shelled green peas.

  2. Cover the skillet and simmer slowly until the peas are tender.

  3. Remove the herb bouquet, season with salt and pepper, 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. Shallot + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  3. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 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

Bacon
Renders fat that cooks the shallots and adds savory, smoky flavor to the dish.
Shallots
Soften and turn golden in the bacon fat, adding mild sweetness and aroma.
White broth
Liquid that moistens the pan and gently cooks the peas as it simmers.
Green peas
Main vegetable that becomes tender and sweet during slow simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly under a cover until the peas are tender. Gentle, covered simmering cooks the peas through while keeping them moist and tender. Boiling hard or cooking uncovered can toughen the skins and dry the liquid before the peas soften.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, pepper):

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, pepper. 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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