Name: Tenderones of Veal, and Stewed Peas
Ingredients: 1 ounce butter; 1 slice lean ham; 1 pint peas; 1 chopped onion; 1 head cabbage lettuce; ½ pint stock; 1 lump sugar; 1 small piece butter; flour

Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tenderones of Veal, and Stewed Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a stewpan.
Add the slice of ham, peas, chopped onion, and cabbage lettuce.
Cook on low heat for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, add the stock and sugar.
Once the peas are cooked, mix a small piece of butter with flour, add to the stew, and bring to a boil.
Serve the peas over the tenderones.

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.

Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together622 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,001 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,562 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,236 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, sugar, flour):

Chestnutfits better
Beansfits better
Lentilsfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, onion, cabbage, lettuce, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.