Skip to main content
Main

To Stew Green Peas

A simple stew of green peas, lettuce, onion, butter, and seasonings, optionally finished with egg or flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
To Stew Green Peas

Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

To Stew Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the peas, lettuce, and onion in a pan.

  2. Add butter, pepper, salt, and just enough water to cover the vegetables, then stew gently for 2 hours.

  3. If desired, beat the egg and stir it in before serving, or mix in flour and butter.

  4. Serve warm.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  3. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the dish and give it its bulk and sweet flavor.
Lettuce
Adds moisture and soft body as it stews down with the peas.
Onion
Contributes savory aroma and depth to the stewed vegetables.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the stew.

The step that matters

Stewing gently. Cooking at a gentle simmer keeps the peas tender and prevents them from breaking down unevenly or drying out, since the liquid is limited to just enough water to cover.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lettuce, butter, pepper, egg. 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.

You might also like

Green Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesCreamy Lettuce SoupCreamy Lettuce Soup8 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas8 recipesLettuce SoupLettuce Soup8 recipes