Name: To Stew Young Peas and Lettuce
Ingredients: 1 or 2 heads of cabbage lettuce; ½ cup coarse sea salt; 1 quart (4 cups) of peas; 3 tablespoons of gravy; 1 tablespoon of butter; 1 tablespoon of flour; pepper to taste; ¼ teaspoon of salt; 1 teaspoon of pounded loaf sugar

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Stew Young Peas and Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

Wash and clean the lettuce heads, removing the outer leaves.
Soak the leaves in cold water with salt for 2 hours.
Slice the soaked lettuce and place it in a saucepan.

Stew

Add the peas, gravy, butter dredged with flour, pepper, salt, and sugar.
Cover and stew until the peas are soft.

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.

Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + peastop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together392 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage lettuce: Forms the body of the stew, softening as it cooks into a tender vegetable base.
Peas: Provide the main bulk and sweet, mild flavour once stewed until soft.
Gravy: Adds savoury liquid and flavour that the stew cooks into.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour: Dredged onto the butter, it thickens the cooking liquid as it stews.
Loaf sugar: Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savoury gravy and salt.

The step that matters

Cover and stew until the peas are soft. Keeping the pan covered holds in steam so the peas and lettuce cook gently and evenly. Stopping too early leaves the peas firm and floury, while over-boiling breaks them down and thickens the liquid unevenly.

Swap the peas

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

Chestnutfits better
Almondfits better
Beansfits better
Peasthe original

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

Green Peas229 recipes

Red Cabbage65 recipes

Stewed Cabbage58 recipes

Baked Cabbage51 recipes

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To Stew Young Peas and Lettuce