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Peas Pudding

A boiled pudding made from dried peas, butter, pepper, salt, and flour, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Peas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the peas in water overnight, discarding any that float.

  2. Drain the peas and tie them in a pudding cloth, leaving room for swelling.

Boil and mash

  1. Place the cloth in cold water and boil for 2 to 3 hours until tender.

  2. Remove from water, untie the cloth, and rub the peas through a colander or wire sieve.

  3. Mix in the butter, pepper, and salt.

Final boil and serve

  1. Flour the cloth well, tie it up again, and boil for another hour.

  2. Turn out and serve.

  3. Optionally, mix in dried powdered mint or leftover cold potatoes.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried peas
Form the main body of the pudding, softening into a thick, starchy purée when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel to the mashed peas.
Flour
Dusts the cloth so the outside of the pudding forms a dry skin that helps it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Leaving room for swelling in the cloth. Dried peas expand considerably as they absorb water and soften. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the pudding can burst or become misshapen during boiling.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour. 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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