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Lettuce with Green Peas

A buttery stew of lettuce and green peas flavored with wine, spices, and Liebig’s Extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lettuce with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lettuce and green peas, then soak them in cold water with salt for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the lettuce and peas on a clean cloth.

Make the stew

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan and add the drained vegetables.

  2. Place the pan over the fire and simmer for 45 minutes.

  3. Season with salt, white pepper, nutmeg, celery salt, parsley, and mint.

  4. Add the Liebig's Extract and white wine.

  5. Simmer for a little longer until the peas are soft.

Serve

  1. Grate rusk over the top.

  2. Serve.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Softens into the stew, adding bulk and a mild, tender body as it cooks.
Green peas
Provide the main body and sweetness, becoming soft and tender through long simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and carries the flavour of the seasonings.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the savoury stew.
Liebig's extract
Concentrates savoury meaty flavour into the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer until the peas are soft. Peas need sustained gentle simmering to soften fully. Stopping early leaves them firm and floury, while a hard boil can break them apart and toughen the skins.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, peas, butter, nutmeg, celery, parsley, mint):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, peas, butter, nutmeg, celery, parsley, mint. 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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