Why it works: Peas and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,887 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
To Boil Peas
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick over the peas, but do not wash them.
Boil
Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the peas.
Boil the peas for 30 minutes.
If the peas are old, add a pinch of baking soda to the boiling water.
Drain and serve
Drain the peas in a colander.
Transfer the peas to a tin dish and add butter and salt.
Stir the peas and keep them warm while serving the meat.
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.
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Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Peas
- Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as their starches soften during boiling.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the cooked peas.
- Baking soda
- Raises the cooking water's alkalinity, helping older peas soften more evenly.
The step that matters
Boil the peas for 30 minutes. Boiling time controls tenderness. Starches in the peas gelatinize and cell walls soften as they heat, so cooking too briefly leaves them firm while cooking too long turns them mushy.
“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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