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Petits-pois Sautes

Sautéed peas cooked with butter, onion, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,460 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Petits-pois Sautes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. In a pot, combine peas, butter, onion, sugar, salt, and boiling water.

  2. Cover the pot closely and stew gently for 35 minutes.

  3. Once the peas are tender, add the remaining butter and toss well.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately after the butter melts.

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 + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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

Peas
Form the main body of the dish and soften into a tender texture during gentle stewing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and finishes the peas with a silky coating as it melts.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savoury onion and salt.

The step that matters

Stewing covered and gently. Covering the pot traps steam so the peas cook in their own moisture, and gentle heat keeps them tender without breaking down or drying out. Vigorous boiling can toughen the skins and scorch the butter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, 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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