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Peas a LA Bourgeoise

A pea dish cooked with butter, lettuce, onions, herbs, milk, eggs, and sugar, finished with poached egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 a LA Bourgeoise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the peas.

  2. Wash the lettuce heart and shred it finely.

Cook the peas

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the peas, onions, parsley, lettuce, salt, pepper, and mint.

  3. Cover and simmer gently for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  4. Remove the mint sprig.

  5. Add the milk or cream and sugar.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs. Be careful not to let it boil again.

Garnish and serve

  1. Poach the egg whites in a buttered cup until hard.

  2. Rub through a sieve.

  3. Transfer to a deep serving dish.

  4. Garnish the peas with the sieved egg.

  5. Sprinkle with coralline pepper.

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. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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, giving sweet, tender bulk to the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, helping the vegetables soften gently in the pan.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the milk or cream into a silky, lightly set sauce when kept below boiling.
Lettuce
Wilts into the peas, adding moisture and a soft, mild body to the stew.
Green onions
Add a mild, sharp aroma that softens and sweetens during slow simmering.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, forming the base of the thickened sauce with the yolks.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but curdle and turn grainy if the mixture boils. Remove from heat or keep it below boiling once the yolks go in, stirring constantly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, lettuce, mint, parsley, butter, egg, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, mint, parsley, butter, egg, milk. 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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