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Peas Stewed with Oil

A stewed pea dish flavored with lettuce, mint, onion, oil, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Peas Stewed with Oil

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stewpan, combine peas, chopped lettuce, mint, onion, oil, and powdered sugar.

  2. Add enough water to cover the peas.

  3. Stew gently, stirring occasionally to prevent burning, until the peas are soft and a yellowish brown.

  4. Serve warm.

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 + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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
Form the main body of the dish, softening into a tender, spoonable texture as they stew.
Lettuce
Adds moisture and body, breaking down as it stews to help form a soft, mellow mass.
Oil
Carries flavour and adds fat, giving the stewed peas a richer mouthfeel.
Powdered sugar
Adds a little sweetness and helps the peas take on a yellowish brown colour as they cook.

The step that matters

Stewing gently with occasional stirring. Stewing over gentle heat with the water and oil and stirring now and then keeps the peas from sticking and scorching on the base of the pan, while letting them soften fully.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, mint, sugar. 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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