Why it works: Chive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 261 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Puree of Peas
Ingredients
Directions
Stew the peas with butter, salt, sugar, chives, lettuce, and parsley until tender.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.
Add the seasoned cullis and reduce the puree.
Serve with veal, beef, or mutton.
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.
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Chive + lettucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together261 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,150 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,483 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,293 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Peas + chivetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together227 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Green peas
- Form the bulk of the puree, providing the main flavour and body.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
- Lettuce
- Adds moisture and body that help the puree turn smooth when stewed and sieved.
- Seasoned cullis
- Adds liquid and savoury depth, and reducing it concentrates the flavour and thickens the puree.
The step that matters
Reduce the puree after adding the cullis. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the liquid. Boiling too hard or too long can dull the bright green colour and make the puree stiff or dry, so keep it at a gentle simmer and watch the consistency.
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, chive, lettuce, parsley):
- Chestnutfits better
- Chickpeafits better
- Lentilsfits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, chive, lettuce, parsley. 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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