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Puree of Peas or Lentils

A puree made from peas or lentils, water, stale roll, pepper, salt, spring onions, leeks, sweet herbs, spinach, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and spinach are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Puree of Peas or Lentils

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the peas or lentils for 2 hours.

  2. Boil them in 4 cups of water until they begin to dissolve.

  3. Strain through a sieve and return to the pot.

Make the puree

  1. Crumble the stale roll into the liquid and season with pepper and salt.

Add the vegetables

  1. Finely chop the spring onions or leeks, sweet herbs, and spinach.

  2. Cook the chopped vegetables in butter, then stir into the puree.

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. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Onion + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 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

Peas or lentils
Break down when boiled to form the thick body of the puree.
Stale roll
Absorbs liquid and helps thicken the puree as it is crumbled in.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when the vegetables are cooked in it.
Spring onions or leeks
Add mild allium flavour and aroma once cooked in butter.

The step that matters

Boiling the peas or lentils until they begin to dissolve. Legumes must be cooked long enough to soften and break down; if they stay firm, the puree will be grainy and thin rather than smooth.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, spinach, 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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