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To Boil Green Peas and Broad Beans

A boiled dish of green peas and broad beans seasoned with salt, sugar, and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Boil Green Peas and Broad Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the green peas and broad beans.

Boil and strain

  1. Plunge them into sufficient boiling water to cover them well.

  2. Add salt, sugar, and mint.

  3. Boil for about 20 minutes.

  4. Strain in a colander or sieve.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Peas + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together949 recipes

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

  3. Beans + minttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Beans + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and tender as they cook.
Broad beans
Add substance and a firmer texture alongside the peas.
Green mint
Adds a fresh, aromatic flavour to the cooking water.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, sugar, mint):

  1. Lima beansfits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Lentilsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, sugar, mint. 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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