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Pease Pudding

A boiled pea pudding made with peas, butter, eggs, pepper, and sea 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 ↓

Pease Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the peas in rain or soft water for 10 hours, removing any that float.

  2. Drain the peas.

  3. Tie the peas loosely in a clean cloth.

  4. Place the cloth with peas in plenty of cold rain water.

  5. Bring the water to a boil.

  6. Simmer the peas until tender, at least 2 hours.

  7. Drain the peas over a colander.

  8. Pass the peas through a clean wire sieve.

Make the pudding

  1. Season the pulp with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Beat the eggs with the butter.

  3. Stir the beaten eggs into the pulp.

  4. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

  5. Tie the pudding tightly in a clean cloth.

  6. Boil for another 30 minutes.

  7. Turn the pudding onto a dish.

  8. 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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Peas + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 pudding once cooked and pureed into a thick pulp.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the pulp into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the pulp.

The step that matters

Simmer the peas until tender. Peas must be fully softened so they can be pressed into a smooth pulp. Undercooked peas stay grainy and sieve poorly, and the pudding will not set evenly.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Pecansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, 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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