Skip to main content
Drink

Teas, to Boil

A simple green pea tea flavored with mint, butter, and optional sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Teas, to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell and wash the peas in cold water.

Cook

  1. Boil water and add the mint and peas.

  2. Cook for 15 minutes for early peas or 20 minutes for marrowfat until tender.

  3. Drain the peas and place them in an entree dish.

Finish and serve

  1. Add a pat of butter in the center and sprinkle with sugar if desired.

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. 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. Mint + buttertop 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

Young green peas
Provide the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender texture.
Mint
Adds a fresh, aromatic flavor to the cooking water and peas.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor across the peas.

The step that matters

Cooking the peas until tender. Timing depends on pea variety: early peas need about 15 minutes, while older marrowfat peas need about 20. Starches soften gradually as the peas cook, so undercooking leaves them firm and overcooking makes them mushy and dull in flavor.

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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes