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Petits Pois Au Jambon a LA Francaise

A French dish of peas cooked with ham, herbs, sugar, and butter, finished with puff pastry fleurons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,137 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Petits Pois Au Jambon a LA Francaise

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Put the peas in a pint of cold water with the onion, mint, parsley, sugar, and a little salt.

  2. Cover and cook gently for 20 to 30 minutes over low heat.

  3. Remove the herbs, pour off some liquid, and boil down the rest.

Add the ham and serve

  1. Fry the chopped ham in the butter and sprinkle in the flour.

  2. Add the ham mixture to the peas and toss well over the heat.

  3. Dish up and garnish with fleurons.

  4. Serve very 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.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,198 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Green peas
Form the main body of the dish and provide its fresh, sweet vegetable flavour.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a meaty bite to the peas.
Butter
Fats the ham while frying and carries flavour through the dish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the peas are coated in a light sauce.

The step that matters

Boil down the liquid after removing the herbs. Reducing the cooking liquid concentrates its flavour and thickens it slightly. If it is left too watery, the flour will not bind properly and the dish will be thin and dilute.

Flavor stand-ins for the mint

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

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, onion, parsley, sugar, ham, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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