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Peas Tinned

A simple oven-cooked dish of drained tinned peas with butter, salt, pepper, sugar, and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Peas Tinned

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Open the tin and drain off the liquid.

  2. Place the peas in an enamel bowl.

  3. Add the butter, salt, pepper, sugar, and fresh mint.

Cook

  1. Cover the bowl and place it in a tin of water.

  2. Cook in the oven at 300°F (150°C) or over a slow fire.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

  3. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and supply its tender, vegetable texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the peas and carrying flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the peas' natural grassy taste.
Fresh mint
Adds a fresh, aromatic flavour.

The step that matters

Cover the bowl and set it in a tin of water. The covered bowl in a water bath keeps the heat gentle and even. Slow, moist heat lets the peas soften without drying out or scorching, so keep the water from boiling hard.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, butter, pepper, 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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