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Peas Dried

A dish of cooked dried peas seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, 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 Dried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Soak the peas overnight in water with a lump of baking soda.

  2. The next day, rinse the peas well.

Cook

  1. Place the peas in a large piece of muslin and boil in water.

  2. If the peas are not very soft, add a little more baking soda.

Season and serve

  1. Once cooked, transfer the peas to a vegetable dish.

  2. Add salt, pepper, butter, and fresh mint.

  3. Cover and keep warm in hot water on the stove until ready to serve.

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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Dried peas
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and soft after soaking and boiling.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which helps the peas soften more fully during soaking and cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cooked peas a smooth, mellow mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding more baking soda when peas are not soft. Baking soda raises alkalinity, which helps break down pea skins and cell walls. Adding too much, however, can make peas mushy and give them a soapy taste, so add only a little at a time.

Swap the mint

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

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

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