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Boiled Peas

A simple boiled pea dish flavored with mint, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and peas 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 Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. In a pot, bring 1 quart of water to a boil with 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and ½ ounce of green mint.

  2. Add 1 pint of shelled peas and boil quickly with the pot uncovered.

  3. Once cooked, drain the peas and transfer them to a sauté pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 1 ounce of butter, sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt and 1 teaspoon of powdered sugar.

  2. Stir until the butter melts and coats the peas, then 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. Mint + peastop 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. Mint + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sugar + peastop 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

Shelled peas
Provide the main body of the dish and the sweet, tender texture once cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the peas and giving them a glossy finish.
Green mint
Adds a fresh aroma to the cooking water that gently scents the peas.

The step that matters

Boil quickly with the pot uncovered. Boiling fast in an open pot keeps the peas bright green, since acids released during cooking can dull chlorophyll when the pot is covered and the liquid stays acidic. Cooking too long makes them soft and drab.

Swap the mint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, peas, 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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