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Old Peas Stewed

A stew of peas cooked with butter, onion, herbs, broth, and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Old Peas Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a stew-pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

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

  3. Add the peas and enough broth to just float them; simmer until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the peas, discarding the onion pieces, and spread the peas on a dish.

  2. Thicken the strained broth with butter and flour, then stir in the sugar and peas.

  3. Bring to a boil and 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 + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 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 (in the method)
Form the main body of the dish and soften into a tender vegetable base.
Flour
Thickens the strained broth into a smooth, lightly body-filled sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the base and helps build the thickened sauce.
Onion
Sweetens and flavours the broth as it cooks gently in butter.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid that softens the peas and forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the strained broth with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and broth so it thickens smoothly; if added raw or in clumps, it leaves lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, parsley, sugar, flour, pepper, cream. 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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