Skip to main content
Main

Split-peas Pudding

A thick pudding made from boiled split peas, butter, salt, pepper, and optionally eggs, served with melted butter and parsnip garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Split-peas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the yellow split peas in water overnight.

  2. Drain the peas and place them in a loose cloth to allow swelling.

Cook

  1. Boil the peas for 4 hours or until tender.

  2. Rub the cooked peas through a colander until smooth.

  3. Mix in a lump of butter and salt.

  4. Tie the mixture tightly in the cloth and boil for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter poured over the pudding and garnish with parsnips if desired.

  2. For a richer pudding, add 2 well-beaten eggs along with the butter.

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 + parsniptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

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

  2. Peas + parsniptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

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

  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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Yellow split peas
Form the bulk of the pudding and set into a firm, smooth body when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a smoother, softer mouthfeel.
Eggs
Bind the pudding and set when cooked, giving it a richer, more cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Tie the mixture tightly in the cloth. A tight cloth keeps the pudding compact so it holds its shape. It also limits water entering the pudding, so the peas cook into a dense, firm mass rather than a loose, watery one.

Swap the parsnip

The recipe marks parsnip as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, butter, pepper, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, 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 PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesParsnip CakesParsnip Cakes12 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes