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To Boil Green Peas

A simple boiled green peas dish seasoned with salt, sugar, butter, and optional mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Boil 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 ↓

To Boil Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the peas and wash them thoroughly.

  2. Drain the peas in a colander.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the salt and sugar.

  2. Add the peas to the boiling water and cook until tender, about 30 minutes for young peas or longer for older peas.

  3. Drain the peas again and place them in a dish with a slice of fresh butter.

  4. If desired, boil a small bunch of mint with the peas, mince it finely, and serve it on the side.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + minttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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, softening into a tender vegetable when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy coating to the warm peas.

The step that matters

Cooking until tender. Peas that are undercooked stay firm and starchy, while overcooked peas turn soft and mushy. Older peas need longer boiling than young ones, so check texture rather than relying only on the time.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Mintthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, sugar, 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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