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Green Peas Au Gratin

A baked dish of boiled green peas topped with butter, breadcrumbs, and optional ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Green Peas Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble

  1. Mix the boiled peas with butter and place them in a flat fireproof dish.

  2. Mask the surface of the peas with fine bread crumbs and brush with melted butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden brown.

  2. Serve as is or garnish with rounds of cooked ham brushed with glaze.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  4. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Young green peas
Form the main body of the gratin and provide sweetness and soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the peas and helps the surface brown.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven and shields the peas from drying.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Browning depends on surface heat and the butter-coated crumbs. Underbaking leaves the topping pale and the peas wet, while overbaking dries the peas and scorches the crumbs.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Lima beansfits about as well
  2. Peasthe original
  3. Almondfits less well
  4. Beansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, ham. 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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