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To Stew Green Peas

A stew of green peas, lettuce, onion, butter, pepper, salt, and water, finished with egg or flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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To Stew Green Peas

Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

To Stew Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put the peas, lettuce, and onion in a pan.

  2. Add butter, pepper, salt, and just enough water to cover the peas.

Stew and finish

  1. Stew gently for 2 hours.

  2. Beat an egg and stir it in.

  3. Mix in a little flour and butter.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Form the bulk of the dish and give it body and a sweet, vegetal flavour.
Lettuce
Softens as it stews, adding moisture and a mild, sweet vegetable note.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it stews, adding savoury depth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Egg (in the method)
Sets when heated, thickening and enriching the liquid as it is stirred in.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the cooking liquid, giving the peas a looser, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Beat an egg and stir it in. Egg proteins set when heated, so an egg added to very hot liquid can scramble into specks instead of thickening smoothly. Stirring it in steadily, with the liquid no longer boiling hard, lets it blend evenly and enrich the dish.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, onion, butter, 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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