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Green Peas and Dumplings

A dish of boiled green peas served with buttered dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Green Peas and Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Boil the shelled peas with a sprig of mint and a lump of sugar until tender.

Make the dumplings

  1. In a bowl, mix 8 tablespoons of butter with 3 cups of flour and enough cold water to form a paste.

  2. Roll out the paste, add 4 more ounces of butter, roll out again, and shape into a ball.

  3. Break off small pieces and form tiny dumplings.

  4. When the peas are nearly cooked, drop the dumplings into the pan and cook for a few more minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain off the water, add a small pat of butter, salt, and pepper, and toss over the heat until the butter is absorbed.

  2. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the paste and the body of the dumplings, giving them structure as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, tenderising the dough and carrying flavour through the dish.
Shelled peas
Form the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and sweet.

The step that matters

Drop the dumplings in when the peas are nearly cooked. Dumplings added too early become overcooked and soggy before the peas are ready. Adding them late gives the dough just enough time to set and cook through in the simmering liquid.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, sugar, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, sugar, butter, flour, 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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