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French Peas

A quick dish of canned peas cooked in boiling water, seasoned with salt, optionally mixed with carrots and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,994 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

French Peas

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Drain the peas from the can.

  2. Turn the peas into a saucepan of boiling water.

  3. Boil for 1 minute and then drain immediately.

  4. Season with salt and serve at once.

  5. For variation, mix with diced carrots and add cream.

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 + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Peas + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Carrot + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,215 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Peas
Provide the main body and sweet, fresh flavour of the dish.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, cream):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, cream. 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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