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Puree of Split Peas

A thick puree made from soaked split peas, sweet cream, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Puree of Split Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the split peas overnight.

  2. Boil the soaked peas in hot water for two hours.

  3. Pass the peas through a colander.

Make the puree

  1. In a kettle, heat the sweet cream and stir in the flour and salt.

  2. When the mixture thickens, return the peas to the kettle and stir well.

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. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Peas + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,837 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Peas + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Form the main body of the puree once softened and passed through a colander.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the puree a smooth, soft texture.
Graham flour or whole wheat flour
Thickens the cream as it heats, helping the mixture set and hold the peas.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the hot cream. Flour must be stirred in evenly so it does not form lumps. Starch thickens as it heats, so the mixture should be stirred steadily until it thickens before the peas go in.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour. 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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