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Green Peas a LA Francaise

A sautéed green pea dish flavored with butter, herbs, onions, and finished with a butter‑flour roux and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Green Peas a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. In a saucepan, combine green peas, melted butter, sweet herbs, chives, lettuce heart, onions, salt, and sugar.

  2. Boil slowly, stirring occasionally until the peas are tender.

  3. Remove the herbs and lettuce, then add the butter rolled in flour.

Alternative method

  1. In another method, melt butter in a saucepan, add peas, salt, and sugar, and stew until done, stirring occasionally.

Finish and serve

  1. After 30 minutes, add the beaten egg yolks and stir until mixed and warm.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Chive + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together261 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 its sweet, fresh flavor.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light, smooth coating around the peas.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the liquid as they warm, adding richness and body.
Onions
Build a savory aromatic base that flavors the peas as they cook.
Sweet herbs
Add fresh, herbal aroma that brightens the sweetness of the peas.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the savory onions and salt.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if the mixture gets too hot. Stir them in off the heat or at a gentle warmth, keep stirring, and only warm until the mixture thickens slightly and looks smooth.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, thyme, basil, chive, lettuce, onion):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, thyme, basil, chive, lettuce, onion. 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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