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To Boil Green Peas

Boiled young green peas served with butter, salt, and a touch of sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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To Boil Green Peas

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 Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the peas just before boiling.

  2. If sizes vary, separate smaller peas and add them to the saucepan 4-5 minutes later.

  3. Wash and drain the peas in a colander.

  4. Boil plenty of salted water in a saucepan.

Boil

  1. Add the peas and keep the pan uncovered.

  2. Boil rapidly until tender, about 15-25 minutes for young peas, longer for older ones.

  3. Drain the peas.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with melted butter or a slice of fresh butter in the center.

  2. Do not mix mint with the peas unless specifically ordered.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Young green peas
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sweet as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the warm peas.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly until tender with the pan uncovered. Rapid boiling in uncovered water keeps the peas bright green, since trapped acids from the pan can dull the color. Cooking until tender without overcooking keeps the texture firm yet soft.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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