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Green Peas

A stew of shelled peas cooked with butter, lettuce, onions, mint, water, pepper, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Green Peas

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 ↓

Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the peas and butter.

  2. Add the sliced lettuce, split onions, mint, and water.

  3. Cover the saucepan and place it on the fire.

  4. When the lettuce wilts, shake the saucepan to mix the ingredients.

  5. Season with pepper, salt, and sugar.

  6. Stew the peas until tender, ensuring the fire is not too brisk.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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 dish, becoming tender through slow stewing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour across the peas.
Lettuce
Wilts down to add moisture and a soft, silky texture.
Onions
Soften during stewing, adding mild sweetness and savoury depth.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vegetables' natural bitterness.

The step that matters

Stew the peas until tender, ensuring the fire is not too brisk.. A gentle, low heat lets the peas soften evenly and slowly while the water turns to steam. A vigorous boil can toughen the outer skins and scorch the butter and lettuce on the bottom of the pan before the peas are cooked through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, lettuce, mint, 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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