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To Boil Green Peas

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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To Boil Green Peas

Why it works: Peas and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,887 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Boil Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Do not shell the peas until just before cooking.

  2. Wash the peas in cold water.

  3. Remove any decayed peas that float to the top.

Cook

  1. Place the good peas in a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover them, along with the salt and sugar.

  2. Cook for about 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the water through a colander.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the peas to a serving dish.

  2. Add the butter and stir gently until melted.

  3. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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

Peas
Form the main body of the dish, and their texture softens as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth coating that carries flavour across the peas.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that rounds out the natural flavour of the peas.

The step that matters

Cook for about 20 minutes. Peas cook quickly in boiling water, and extended heat softens their starches too far and dulls their bright green colour. Checking them near the end of the time helps keep them tender but firm.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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