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Green Peas a LA Bourgeoise

A French-style green peas dish cooked with butter, chives, lettuce, onions, sugar, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 261 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Green Peas a LA Bourgeoise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the shelled peas on a plate and look them over carefully.

  2. Do not wash the peas.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, combine the peas, butter, chives, lettuce leaves, onions, and sugar.

  2. Cook gently until the peas are tender.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks and a little butter.

  2. Do not return to heat for long to avoid discoloration.

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. Chive + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together261 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chive + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

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

  5. Peas + chivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the buttery pea liquid into a smooth, creamy coating as they set gently with heat.
Lettuce leaves
Add moisture and a soft, sweet body that helps the peas stay tender as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, carrying flavor through the peas.
Onions
Contribute aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Do not return to heat for long. Prolonged heat after the egg yolks are added can overcook them, causing curdling and the grayish discoloration the recipe warns about, and it dulls the fresh green color of the peas.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, chive, lettuce, sugar, egg. 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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