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Green Peas a LA Fran5ai.se

A savory pea dish with butter, flour, stock, onions, parsley, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,483 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Green Peas a LA Fran5ai.se

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Blend the flour and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add 3 cups of plain white stock and bring to a boil.

Cook the peas

  1. Add the sprig of parsley, salt, white sugar, peeled onions, and cut lettuces.

  2. Add the peas, cover the pan, and cook gently for 25-35 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the sprig of parsley before serving and stir in chopped parsley and a pat of butter or a spoonful of cream.

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. Parsley + lettucetop 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. Onion + lettucetop 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. Flour + lettucetop 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

Young green peas
Form the main body of the dish and supply its sweet, fresh green flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid as its starch swells with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished liquid.
Button onions
Soften during gentle cooking and add mild sweetness and aroma.
Lettuces
Wilt into the liquid, adding moisture and a soft, tender texture.
Plain white stock
Forms the cooking liquid that carries flavour and gently cooks the vegetables.

The step that matters

Cook the peas gently with the lid on. A gentle simmer keeps young peas tender and bright green. Vigorous boiling toughens their skins and dulls their colour, so the pan should stay at a low, steady heat for the full cooking time.

Swap the peas

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

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

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