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The Dinner Question

A stew of peas, lettuce, onion, parsley, butter, flour, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,483 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

The Dinner Question

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Combine peas and butter in a pan, rubbing until well mixed.

  2. Pour off the water and transfer the peas to a stewpan.

Stew

  1. Add the shredded lettuce, onion, parsley, sugar, and salt.

  2. Cover and stew gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Knead together fresh butter and flour on a plate, then add this mixture to the peas and toss until well combined.

  4. Remove the parsley and onion before serving, but leave the lettuce.

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. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the body of the stew and provide its main vegetable flavour and substance.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the stew.
Lettuce
Softens as it stews, adding moisture and a mild, delicate flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the stew becomes creamy rather than watery.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour kneaded into butter and tossed in at the end must be fully combined, or it forms lumps instead of thickening the liquid evenly. Stirring gently keeps the stew smooth.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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