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To Stew Old Peas

A stew of old peas cooked with butter, optional meat, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Stew Old Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the peas in water overnight or for half an hour if using fine boilers.

  2. Place the peas in a pot and cover with enough water.

Stew

  1. Add butter and the piece of meat if using.

  2. Stew gently until the peas are soft and the meat is tender.

  3. If using fresh meat, add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve the peas around the meat.

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. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Peas + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,044 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Old peas
Form the main body of the dish, softening into a tender, thick stew as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the stewed peas a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Beef or pork
Optional meat that releases flavour and fat into the stewing liquid while becoming tender.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the peas are soft and the meat is tender. Gentle heat lets dried peas soften evenly without breaking apart or toughening the meat. Vigorous boiling can split the peas and make the meat stringy.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, beef. 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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