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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) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Stew Peas for a Dish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the peas in a stewpan with butter, onion, lettuce, and salt.

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

  3. Thicken with a mixture of flour and water.

  4. Add essence of ham, season with Cayenne pepper, and sugar if desired.

  5. Stew gently until the peas are tender, avoiding 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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Peas + cabbagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together392 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Form the body of the stew and become tender through slow cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, spoonable stew.
Lettuce
Softens into the liquid, adding body and a mild, green flavour.
Onion
Builds savoury sweetness as it softens in the butter and liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the peas are tender. Gentle heat lets the peas soften evenly, while high heat can scorch the butter and sugar on the pan base and give a burnt taste.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, cabbage, flour, ham, pepper, sugar. 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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