Why it works: Lettuce and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,483 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Puree of Green Peas
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Shell enough peas to fill a pint measure.
Slice and wash the pea pods.
Cook the pods
Place the sliced pods in a stewpan with shredded lettuce, chopped onion, herbs, parsley, and coarse sea salt.
Cover the mixture with fresh milk.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Simmer until the pods are soft.
Drain the liquid.
Remove the herbs and parsley.
Press the remaining mixture through a fine sieve.
Cook the peas
In another stewpan, add the shelled peas.
Pour the reserved liquid over the peas.
Boil the peas.
Drain the peas when soft.
Pass the peas through the sieve.
Combine the sieved peas with the puree from the pods.
Thicken and finish
Blend the puree with a roux made from melted butter and flour.
For color, boil a handful of fresh spinach leaves with the peas.
Pass the spinach and peas through the sieve.
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.
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Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,483 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,293 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,562 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh green peas
- Forms the bulk of the puree, giving body and a sweet, vegetal flavor.
- Flour
- Thickens the puree when cooked with butter into a roux.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that smooth the texture and round out the flavor.
- Fresh milk
- Gently cooks the vegetables and adds creaminess to the puree.
- Onion
- Adds aroma as it softens during simmering.
The step that matters
Boiling the spinach with the peas. Green vegetables keep their bright color only with brief cooking. Prolonged boiling breaks down chlorophyll, turning the puree dull olive-brown, so the spinach should not be boiled longer than needed.
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, onion, parsley, milk, butter, flour):
- Chickpeafits better
- Lentilsfits better
- Cashew nutfits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, onion, parsley, milk, butter, flour. 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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