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Petits Pois Accommodes

A buttery, herb‑infused pea dish simmered in broth and finished with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Petits Pois Accommodes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Melt the butter in a stew‑pan.

  2. Add the sliced onion, mint, parsley, and salt. Cook until the onions are pale.

  3. Add the peas. Add enough broth to just float the peas.

  4. Simmer until the peas are tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. Strain the liquor.

  2. Place the peas on a dish. Remove the onion pieces.

  3. Thicken the liquor with butter and flour. Add sugar.

  4. Stir in the peas. Heat until steaming. 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.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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, becoming tender through simmering.
Butter and flour
Thicken the cooking liquor into a smooth, body-giving sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it turns pale in the butter.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid that simmers the peas and forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until the peas are tender. Old peas have tough starch and skins, so they need slow, gentle simmering in just enough liquid to soften fully. Boiling hard can break them apart and toughen the skins.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mint, parsley, peas, sugar, flour, pepper. 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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