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Peas Pudding

A thick pudding made from split peas, butter, egg, sugar, pepper, and salt, boiled and mashed in cloth.

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

Peas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Remove all discolored peas or shells.

  2. Wash the peas.

  3. Tie the peas loosely in a cloth, leaving room for them to swell.

  4. Boil the peas in water for about an hour until soft.

Make the pudding

  1. Remove the pudding from the water and place it in a basin.

  2. Drain away all the water.

  3. Open the cloth.

  4. Mash the peas smoothly with the butter, pepper, salt, sugar, and beaten egg.

  5. Tie the mixture tightly in a clean cloth.

  6. Place the mixture in a pan of boiling water.

  7. Boil for half an hour.

  8. When ready to serve, turn it out of the cloth into a vegetable dish.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Form the main body of the pudding, softening into a thick, mashable mass when boiled.
Egg
Binds the mashed peas so the pudding holds its shape when turned out.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, softening the mashed peas and giving a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Tie the peas loosely in the cloth. Split peas swell considerably as they absorb water. A loose tie leaves room for expansion, while a tight tie could burst the cloth or make the pudding dense and misshapen.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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