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To Boil Green Peas

A simple boiled green peas dish with butter, salt, flour, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Boil Green Peas

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Boil Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the peas just before boiling.

  2. Wash and drain them in a colander.

Boil the peas

  1. Boil plenty of salted water in a saucepan.

  2. Add the peas and cook until tender, about 15 to 25 minutes.

  3. Drain the peas and serve hot with melted butter on top or a slice of butter in the center.

French style

  1. For French style, mix peas with butter in a bowl until coated.

  2. Drain and place in a saucepan without water.

  3. Cook over gentle heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  4. Add boiling water to cover, a pinch of salt, and boil for 40 minutes.

  5. Stir in a small lump of sugar dipped in water and a smooth mixture of butter and flour.

  6. Shake over heat for a couple of minutes before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Peas + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,837 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy coating to the cooked peas.
Flour
Mixed with butter to thicken the cooking liquid and give the peas a silky body.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the savoury, starchy flavour of the peas.

The step that matters

Cooking the French style peas gently. Peas cooked in butter without water over gentle heat can scorch if the heat is too high. Stirring occasionally spreads heat evenly and keeps the peas from sticking to the pan.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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