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A Peas Pudding

A pudding made by boiling split peas, crushing them, and cooking with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,331 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Peas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Remove any worm-eaten peas.

  2. Wash the remaining peas well.

  3. Soak the peas overnight in plenty of soft water.

  4. Tie the peas in a thick pudding cloth, allowing room to swell.

Boil and mash

  1. Cover with cold soft water and boil gently for 2 to 2½ hours.

  2. Check if the peas are tender; if not, discard as bad quality.

  3. Lift the peas into a colander.

  4. Untie the cloth.

  5. Crush the peas to a paste with a wooden spoon.

  6. Stir in the butter, salt, and pepper.

  7. Tie the mixture tightly in the cloth again.

  8. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn the pudding onto a dish carefully to avoid breaking it.

  2. Serve hot.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 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

Split peas
Form the main body of the pudding, breaking down into a thick, smooth paste when boiled and crushed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mashed peas a softer, smoother texture and flavour.
Carbonate of soda
Softens the peas in hard water so they break down more easily during boiling.

The step that matters

Boiling gently until tender. Peas cooked too hard or too fast can break apart unevenly or stay firm at the centre. A gentle boil lets the starch swell and soften the peas evenly, so they crush into a smooth paste.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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