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To Stew Peas for a Dish

A stew of fresh peas, butter, onion, lettuce, and ham essence, seasoned with salt, cayenne, and optional sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Stew Peas for a Dish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine peas, butter, sliced onion, lettuce, and salt in a stewpan.

  2. Cover the pan and cook over moderate heat until the peas are half done.

  3. Mix flour and water, then add to the pan to thicken the peas, and add the essence of ham.

  4. Season with cayenne pepper and add sugar if desired.

  5. Let the peas stew gently until tender, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

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. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  5. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 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

Peas
Form the main body of the stew, becoming tender as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the stewed vegetables.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light, spoonable stew body.
Onion
Builds savoury depth as it softens into the stew.

The step that matters

Stirring while the peas stew. Starch and sugars in the peas and flour settle on the base of the pan and scorch easily over heat. Stirring occasionally keeps the stew from catching and tasting burnt.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, cabbage, lettuce, flour, ham, pepper):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, cabbage, lettuce, flour, ham, 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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