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Green Peas, Francaise

A French-style side dish of green peas cooked with butter, roux, and chicken glaze, seasoned with salt, sugar, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,528 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Green Peas, Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Wash the shelled green peas.

  2. Drain the peas.

  3. Rub the soft butter through the peas with your hands.

Cook the peas

  1. Place the peas in a saucepan.

  2. Cover with cold water.

  3. Simmer until tender.

  4. Strain the liquid into a clean saucepan.

  5. Reduce the liquid by half.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken the reduced liquid lightly with plain roux.

  2. Strain the thickened liquid over the peas.

  3. Add the chicken glaze.

  4. Season with salt, sugar, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Serve with chops, cutlets, or as a vegetable.

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 + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,528 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the dish and supply the vegetable flavour and colour.
Soft butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the pureed peas.
Plain roux
Thickens the cooking liquid so it coats the peas lightly.
Chicken glaze
Adds concentrated savoury depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Reduce the liquid by half. Reducing concentrates the flavour of the cooking liquid before thickening. Reducing too little leaves it thin and bland, while reducing too far can make it overly salty once the glaze and seasoning are added.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, chicken, sugar, 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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