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To Boil Green Pease

A simple boiled green peas dish seasoned with salt, sugar, butter, and optional mint.

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 ↓

To Boil Green Pease

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Do not shell peas until ready to use.

Cook

  1. Boil water and add peas, salt, and sugar.

  2. Skim the water and boil peas for 10 to 25 minutes, testing for doneness.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain peas and add fresh butter, gently tossing with a silver spoon until coated.

  2. If desired, boil fresh mint, chop finely, and place around the edge of the dish.

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

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + minttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating that carries flavor across the peas.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the savory salt and grassy peas.

The step that matters

Boiling the peas for the right time. Peas go from bright green and tender to dull and mushy as they overcook, because prolonged heat breaks down their cell structure and color pigments. Testing for doneness from 10 minutes on prevents this.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Mintthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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