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To Boil Green Peas

A simple boiled green pea dish flavored with butter, salt, sugar, and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 the peas

  1. Steep the peas in water, then strain.

  2. In a pot, combine peas with a little water and salt.

  3. If the peas are old, add a pinch of baking soda to tenderize them.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil until tender, then dish them up.

  2. Sprinkle sugar over the peas and add a piece of butter in the center.

  3. Garnish with chopped mint leaves around the 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.

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. Butter + sugartop 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, starchy texture when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating that carries flavour across the peas.
Baking soda
Raises the cooking water's pH, helping old peas soften more readily.
Sugar
Adds a gentle sweetness that balances the saltiness of the peas.

The step that matters

Boil until tender. Old peas can stay firm or turn mushy if boiled too long or too briefly. Checking for tenderness during boiling keeps the texture even, and baking soda helps older peas soften faster.

Swap the mint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, 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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