Name: Fruit, Roil, and Meat Pudding
Ingredients: peas; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Peas and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,331 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fruit, Roil, and Meat Pudding

Ingredients

peas
butter
pepper
coarse sea salt

Directions

Boil the peas in plenty of water until soft, about 2 to 3 hours.
Remove the pudding from the water and place it in a basin.
Open the cloth and mash the peas well.
Mix in a piece of butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Tie it up tightly and return it to the pot.
Boil for about 30 minutes.
Turn it out of the cloth into a serving dish.

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.

Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,331 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,887 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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