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Peas French Fashion

A dish of green peas cooked with butter, parsley, green onions, flour, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Peas French Fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. In an earthen pan, combine the peas, butter, and plenty of cold water.

  2. Gently handle the peas with the butter until they stick together, then drain them.

  3. Transfer the peas to a colander to remove excess water.

Stew and thicken

  1. Stew the peas over moderate heat with parsley and green onions until they regain their green color.

  2. Sprinkle the peas with flour and stir before adding boiling water to cover them.

  3. Quickly reduce the moisture over high heat until none remains.

  4. Dissolve a small lump of sugar in water and add it to the peas along with a small amount of salt.

  5. Knead the remaining butter with flour and add it to the boiling peas.

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. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the dish, cooked until tender in their own moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the peas as it is worked in and melted.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the peas are coated rather than swimming in water.
Fresh parsley
Contributes a fresh, herbal aroma and helps keep the peas green during stewing.

The step that matters

Quickly reduce the moisture over high heat until none remains.. Excess water dilutes the buttery, floured coating and makes the peas watery. Reducing it fast over high heat concentrates the flavor and keeps the peas from overcooking to a dull color while the thickening takes hold.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, onion, flour, sugar. 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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