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Pea Pudding

A thickened pea mixture cooked with butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,331 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pea Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the peas in water with a large pinch of carbonate of soda for 12 hours or longer.

  2. Tie the peas in a pudding cloth loosely to allow room for swelling.

  3. Boil the peas in enough cold water to cover them, with a pinch of soda, for 3 hours.

  4. Drain the peas in a colander and mash them smoothly or pass through a sieve.

Season and shape

  1. Mix in the butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stir the mixture in a clean saucepan over heat until thick.

  3. Press the mixture into a hot greased basin.

  4. Turn the mixture out of the basin.

Serve

  1. Serve.

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 + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  2. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Peas
Form the bulk of the pudding, and when cooked and mashed they set into a thick, spoonable body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the mashed peas.
Carbonate of soda
Raises the pH of the soaking and boiling water, helping the peas soften and break down.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture until thick. Stirring over heat drives off surplus moisture so the mash thickens enough to hold its shape when pressed into the basin. Too little cooking leaves it loose and watery.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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