Why it works: Peas and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,887 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Peas Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peas
Tie the split peas in a cloth, leaving room for them to swell.
Boil the peas in water until soft, about 2 to 3 hours.
Shape and cook the pudding
Remove the pudding from the water and place it in a basin.
Bruise the peas well and mix in a bit of butter and a little salt.
Transfer the mixture into a mold and tie it tightly.
Boil the mold in water for another 30 minutes.
Serve
Turn out the pudding to serve.
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.
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Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,887 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Split peas
- Form the main body of the pudding, setting into a soft, thick mass as they cook.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, making the bruised peas smoother and more tender.
The step that matters
Tie the cloth with room to swell. Split peas absorb water and roughly double in volume as they cook. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the peas cannot expand and may burst the cloth or cook unevenly.
“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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