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Peas a LA Bourgeoise

A sauté of peas with cabbage or endive, green onions, and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,001 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Peas a LA Bourgeoise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lettuce or endive into squares and chop the green onions.

Cook

  1. Fry the onions in clarified butter until they are a fine brown color.

  2. Wash and drain the lettuce or endive, then add them to the pan with the onions.

  3. Stew gently until cooked, then drain on a sieve.

Finish

  1. Toss the cooked vegetables with the peas and stew together.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peastop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together392 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce or endive
Forms the bulk of the dish and softens into a tender, moist texture when stewed.
Green onions
Browning in butter builds a sweet, savoury aroma that flavours the greens.
Clarified butter
Provides fat for frying the onions and carries flavour without burning as easily as whole butter.
Peas
Add sweetness and a tender bite that contrasts with the soft greens.

The step that matters

Stew gently until cooked, then drain on a sieve. Gentle heat softens the leaves evenly without toughening or breaking them down. Draining removes released water so the dish does not turn soggy or watery.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, butter. 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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