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Green Peas

A boiled green pea salad tossed with lettuce, onions, mint butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Green Peas

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 ↓

Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Tie the lettuce and onions into a small bunch.

  2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

  3. Add the peas and the bunch of lettuce and onions, along with the sugar.

  4. Cook until the peas are tender.

  5. Strain off the water and remove the lettuce and onion bunch.

Dress and serve

  1. In a dish, mix the butter with the minced mint.

  2. Pour the cooked peas over the mint butter and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mint + lettucetop 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

Green peas
Form the main body of the salad and provide its sweet, tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and coats the peas with a silky fat.
Mint
Contributes a fresh, aromatic flavour that brightens the buttered peas.
Lettuce
Adds gentle sweetness and a tender, vegetal aroma to the cooking water.
Onions
Lend savoury depth and aroma to the cooking water.

The step that matters

Cook until the peas are tender. Overcooking turns peas dull and mushy, while undercooking leaves them starchy and firm. Peas are done when they are tender but still hold their shape and bright green colour, so check them early and drain promptly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, mint, lettuce, 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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