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To Boil Green Peas

A simple boiled green peas dish seasoned with sugar, salt, mint, butter, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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To Boil 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 ↓

To Boil Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell and wash the peas.

Boil

  1. Put them in boiling water with sugar, salt, and mint.

  2. Boil for about 20 minutes or longer if the peas are old.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain in a colander and remove the mint.

  2. Add butter, pepper, and salt, then toss gently.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the dish and are the dish's central ingredient.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel when tossed with the warm peas.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the vegetal flavour of the peas.

The step that matters

Boil for about 20 minutes. Overcooking makes peas soft and mushy, while undercooking leaves them starchy and firm. Older peas need longer cooking because their starches and cell walls are tougher, so check tenderness rather than relying only on the clock.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, sugar, 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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