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Peas a LA Francaise

A pea stew with lettuce, onion, stock, and egg yolks, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Peas a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the peas

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the peas, chopped onion, shredded lettuce, and stock.

  3. Cook slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Add pepper and coarse sea salt.

  5. Let the boil subside.

  6. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  7. Cook for a few minutes without boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve as a luncheon dish with croutons of fried bread or as a vegetable.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

  3. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the cooking liquid into a silky, lightly set sauce when stirred in gently.
Lettuce
Adds soft body and a mild sweetness as it cooks down with the peas.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour through the pan at the start of cooking.
Shelled peas
Form the main body of the dish, giving sweetness and tender texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but curdle and turn grainy if they boil. Letting the boil subside first and cooking without boiling keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, lettuce, parsley, egg, 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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